Miya, still rearmost, suddenly cocked her head. “Do you hear that?”
“What? The monster?”
“No! More like… horns.”
That jolted Tol. Narren wouldn’t sound horns unless there was a grave emergency.
“Go back!” he shouted, shoving Mandes and Kiya around. “XimXim must be coming!”
It was hard going back up the slope. Mandes’s soft slippers lost purchase, and he fell repeatedly. The Dom- shu sisters finally grabbed him by the arms and dragged him along.
The journey seemed to take forever, but finally Tol was close enough to the cave mouth to see the stars beyond. Unfortunately, he also heard the dreaded sound-
Below the cave entrance, Tol’s men realized the same thing. Egrin had arrived with his company, and it was as he listened to Narren’s explanation of their commander’s personal reconnaissance that the dreaded hum filled the night air. Egrin immediately ordered all signal horns blown, though there was no way to know whether Tol could hear them.
Hoping to draw XimXim’s attention away from the cave, Egrin called forward the soldiers in each company who carried clay urns of live embers. In camp each night, the embers were revived for cookfires. Egrin ordered them thrown on a bed of dry leaves. The brisk wind fanned the glowing coals, and a lively fire erupted as XimXim’s hum grew louder.
Overhead, the monstrous creature spied the leaping flames so close to his lair. His large but primitive eyes made out warm-blooded figures moving in the darkness around the fire. He landed in a dry streambed upwind of the fire, and then, rearing up, front legs cocked and ready to strike, he advanced toward the flames.
A shower of spears arced out of the darkness. Reflexively, XimXim halted as they whizzed by. His slender legs were difficult to hit, but several iron-tipped missiles struck his thorax. They bounced harmlessly off his armored hide.
Palps clacking, XimXim strode rapidly into the shadows beyond the bonfire. He could see the dull white faces of his” enemies. Powerful forearms lashed out, scattering the humans. Raking backward with his right leg, he caught one man and hoisted him high. He tried to cut his captive in two, but the man’s iron breastplate resisted. The man screamed and struck at him with a sword. More men rushed out of the darkness, shouting.
XimXim watched, curious, as they swarmed around him. Humans did not usually rush toward him; they ran away. One of the odd humans thrust a spear into the tender joint of his left middle leg, bringing forth a stream of green ichor.
Furious with sudden pain, XimXim snipped the head off his captive human and dropped the limp body. He gathered his legs together and leaped six paces. Humans scattered as he landed hard among them, his narrow feet driving into the stony soil. Since their torsos were protected by iron, he proceeded to cut the humans down at the legs, which were not armored.
Crouching by a boulder, Narren wiped blood from his eyes. “That thing must be made of metal!” he cried. “Swords and spears don’t hurt it!”
“I hurt it,” Egrin replied, showing the younger man XimXim’s green blood on his spear. “It doesn’t have many soft spots, but it has some!”
The fire, ignored by the battling Ergothians, spread quickly from the masses of fallen leaves and licked at the abundant dry tinder. It filled the ravine with crimson light and grotesquely wavering shadows. Men screamed as the monster found them. Others roared defiance and tried to muster their comrades. Eight men of Egrin’s company climbed a tall outcropping that put them level with XimXim’s massive, angular head. They tried to spear the beast’s huge eyes, but it deftly parried their weapons with its massive forearms.
Bringing both arms together like interlocking scythes, XimXim mowed down every soldier on the outcropping. It seized the last one alive and bit off his head. Flinging the torso at the men below, it climbed the rock to gain a height advantage.
Egrin, noting the creature’s movements, shouted, “The beast shows his back! At him now!”
He, Narren, and eleven men rushed from cover. Two grabbed XimXim’s right rear leg, just as he was about to lift it off the ground. Weighed down, the monster swiveled its head to see what held him. While he was so engaged, Egrin ducked under the tree-sized limb and drove a spear into his lower joint.
XimXim shivered from one end to the other. His injured leg kicked out with enormous force, hurling free the men hanging on it. Reversing his stance, he butted four of the creatures who’d caused him such pain. They went down, and XimXim tried to bite the man closest to him. The fellow’s iron cuirass saved him for the moment, but XimXim kept biting at the hard metal plate.
“Egrin! Egrin!” Narren cried, seeing the older warrior pinned down by the monster. He scrambled to his feet. “Juramona!” he shouted, and attacked with his saber.
With one terrific slash, Narren chopped off the end of XimXim’s drooping right antenna. The monster gave a high-pitched shriek of pain and fury. Back came the terrible forearm, snapping like a spring. The blow caught Narren on his breastplate and slammed him against a sharp-edged boulder. His helmet flew off, and he slid to the ground. Blood welled from a terrible head wound, drenching his fair hair. He did not get up again.
Egrin rolled away from the angry monster. He heard death whisper by, as XimXim’s left forearm drove into the dirt, just missing him. With his antenna damaged, the creature’s aim seemed to be off.
“Get back! Fall back!” Egrin bellowed.
The Ergothians were only too happy to oblige. In the brief melee XimXim had killed twenty and wounded twice that many more. As the soldiers took cover in the scrub forest, several flung dirt over the burning brush, extinguishing the fire they had started.
Showing a distinct distaste for continuing the fight, XimXim clambered up a short pinnacle. His wounded leg stuck out behind him, trembling. Green blood stained the boulders, mixing with the red shed by the Ergothians. He opened his wings and took off, flying directly to his lair. When he had rested and was sound again, he would sally forth and destroy these reckless little pests, not only in his immediate domain, but everywhere he encountered them.
As sentries stood watch, graves were dug and wounds tended.
Egrin knelt by Narren and closed the young warrior’s lifeless eyes. Lifting his own gaze, Egrin ran a hand down his cuirass. The hammer-forged plate was dented and chewed as he’d never seen iron damaged before. Juramona iron had saved his life.
No, the armor had only protected him. Brave Narren had saved his life. How Tol would grieve when he learned his old comrade had died-and how proud he would be to know how courageously Narren had sold his life!
Drawn by the signal horns and the blazing bonfire, the scattered companies of Tol’s demi-horde gathered in the ravine below XimXim’s cave. Egrin dispersed them, so the monster wouldn’t find them too easily come daybreak.
He watched as Narren was consigned to the ground. So much death he had seen in his long life, so many young lives lost. Egrin stared up at the black hole in the mountain. Did his commander-his friend-still live?
From the blaring horns and flickering firelight, Tol correctly divined his men were trying not only to warn him, but to distract the returning monster. He couldn’t fault their gallantry, but he fumed at their disobedience. Hadn’t he told them not to fight XimXim?
He, Mandes, and the Dom-shu women were only a dozen steps from the cave entrance. The women released the magician to dash out the opening, and Mandes promptly slipped again. Tol grabbed for the collar of his robe, but missed.
Mandes, squeaking in alarm, rolled down the sloping tunnel.
Miya ran after him. She caught hold of his robe, planted her feet-and was yanked head over heels by his considerable weight. Hopelessly tangled, they slid on.
“Sister!” Kiya shouted and sprinted after Miya.
Tol yelled at her, knowing she wouldn’t abandon her kin any more than he would abandon the pair of them. The cave entrance was so close he could feel the night breeze, but without hesitation he too turned back.
