And for a brief moment, she hoped that she would reach the top of the slope first so that the hidalgo would be between her and the monster.
If someone has to die, God, let it be someone else. Let me get home to my little girl. Let me see her face again, please!
But then she thought of all the thousands who might die if the holy stone fell into the wrong hands, and how much this Lorenzo had done for her, a stranger, and she hated herself for that moment of selfish weakness. Planting both feet on solid ground, Taziri grabbed the trigger of her arm-cannon and turned to look for the beast.
The basajaun was only a dozen yards behind them, just a few seconds away. It had followed them up the slope, running as silent as a cat, and now it loomed over her with its huge saw-bladed club raised to strike.
“No!” She screamed as she pulled the trigger and felt the recoil of the shotgun snap her arm back as she fell to the ground. The blast hit the creature in its left arm and the monster screamed at the woman as a dozen tiny red rivers began streaming from its fur.
Taziri kicked and clawed her way back up the slope and when her feet finally picked her up, she began fumbling for a second shell.
“Alonso!” Lorenzo threw the canvas bag to his student and drew his espada. He dashed down and lunged at the creature, stabbing it twice in the right arm, and then slashing it across the leg.
The monster lowered its club as it cradled its huge arms around its injuries, moaning and screaming. It stumbled back a step, and then another. Lorenzo lowered his sword and backed away up the mountain. Then the giant howled. And from the distant white slopes, another howl answered.
Taziri shoved a new shell into the gun strapped to her arm. Her elbow was throbbing and her hand felt cold and weak, but she could still lift and aim, and that was all that mattered. She pointed the barrel at the beast.
“No, don’t.” Lorenzo took her hand and pulled her up beside him. “It’s injured. It’s not following. Let’s just go.”
“But there’s another one out there.” She pointed in the direction of the second howl.
“All the more reason to leave.” Lorenzo pushed and she obliged by hiking up to the trail. They found the others with Mirari, standing in the ankle-deep snow.
Taziri breathed a cool breath and enjoyed the absence of the sultry vapors of the mountain side as she folded up her tall collar and wrapped her scarf around her neck. She shoved her gun barrel back down to click shut in her brace and then slid her sleeve back down to her wrist.
Mirari, her face unreadable behind the slightly amused expression of the Italian mask, waved them back onto the trail with her drawn hatchet and Dante and Shahera followed close behind her. Taziri gave one last look at the wounded creature on the slope below, and then started walking a few paces behind Alonso with Lorenzo bringing up the rear.
The second basajaun leapt from a stone ledge just above and to their left. The huge mass of flesh and hair smashed into Alonso and sent the young man sliding down the icy slope, slipping and rolling away from the trail toward the featureless wall of whiteness where anything might await him. The canvas sack tumbled away, down and down through the deep snow until it lodged beneath a spear of rock. A sudden blast of wind lifted the curtain of falling snow for a moment and Taziri saw the sharp outline of a cliff edge just below the fallen diestro.
“Alonso!” Taziri dashed after the young man, her whole body bent low to the ground to grab at the sharp teeth of the rocks around her to keep herself from falling out of control. She could see him struggling to roll over and sit up, his hands clinging to a long lip of rock jutting out of the snow.
“Alonso!” someone screamed.
Taziri froze and looked up behind her. Lorenzo had drawn his sword again and was holding the second creature at bay, but he wasn’t the one who cried out. To her right, Taziri saw a figure in dark fur racing back up the trail toward them, a hatchet and long knife flashing in her hands. Mirari leapt up from the trail from one rock ledge to another to gain some height and then fell on the basajaun’s shoulders with both her blades.
The beast-man screamed and flailed left and right, shaking the girl through the air, but she clung to her weapons as her legs swept through the falling snow. Lorenzo shouted and slashed at the basajaun’s hands to keep it from reaching back to grab Mirari.
Taziri looked down at Alonso. He was straining to haul himself up over the rock lip, kicking to get his boot onto solid ground. She scrambled and slid down the slope, skidding from rock to rock until her feet landed on Alonso’s handhold. Grabbing his coat, she helped him up and over the edge, hauling him up to his feet. “You okay?”
He nodded and together they began crawling back up the slope. Taziri’s gloves were soaked from groping through the snow for solid handholds and her fingers began to tremble and tighten. All except the two little fingers of her left hand, the numb ones that never recovered from the fire.
Above them, Lorenzo and Mirari had leapt back from the wounded basajaun. The masked girl had left her knife in the creature’s shaggy back, but she still held her bloody hatchet in her gloved hand. The hidalgo yelled over the howling wind, “Alonso! Taziri! Can you make it?”
Alonso had one hand pressed tight to his ribs and his steaming breaths were huffing in short, quick bursts. Taziri tried to measure the distance back up to the trail. It’s not that far, and there are plenty of rocks to grab, plus the snow is hard-packed but not icy. “I think so!”
The basajaun roared at Lorenzo’s sword, and it swiped one of its massive hands through the snow on the ground to hurl a small blizzard at the hidalgo. Lorenzo took the blow on his arm, where the snow clung to his coat.
Taziri focused on climbing.
Hand, foot, hand, foot. Always keep three points of contact on the mountain. Weight on the legs, not on the arms.
Just above her, she could see the outcropping where the canvas bag had fallen. She started angling toward it. Alonso struggled along close to her feet.
“Get back!” Lorenzo yelled. “Stop right there!”
Does he really think that animal will understand him?
Taziri looked up again to see Mirari and the hidalgo standing back to back. While the girl threatened the moaning, bleeding creature, Lorenzo pointed his espada at another man with a drawn sword.
Fabris!
“Where is the stone?” The Italian slashed his rapier in short, vicious arcs.
Taziri glanced at the canvas bag. It was only a few feet away now. She crept forward.
“Salvator!” Lorenzo’s sword flashed through the blinding waves of snow. “If you don’t stop, we could all die. Look at that beast behind me! There are more out here, and they’re not in a forgiving mood. We need to get off this mountain. Go back! Go!”
As the clashing steel blades rang out across the mountain side, Taziri wrapped her fingers around the woven strap on the mouth of the bag and gently pulled it back toward her. The heavy stone inside the bag rolled and lodged deeper under the rocks. She whipped her hand back to avoid it being crushed. “Damn it!”
She looked up again and saw Fabris staring straight back at her from the trail.
“No, no, no!” Lorenzo lunged just as the Italian took two running steps and leapt out over the snowy slope.
Fabris landed gracefully on an exposed stone, then dashed down and stutter-stepped his way through the snow, bounding over mounds and crashing through the drifts. It only took him a few seconds to reach the rock where the canvas bag was wedged. Taziri was still hauling on the strap to pull it free when the Italian’s boot slammed into the rock just above her head and his sword sliced toward her face.
And then the world raced away and she saw the rapier spark against the rock as she fell backward. Alonso’s hands were digging into her underarms, the left one pinching her breast, as he hauled her away from Fabris’s blade and she fell back onto the young man.
“Thanks,” she wheezed.
Alonso fumbled across her chest and yanked down on her left sleeve. “Shoot him!”
Salvator had both hands on the woven strap and was straining to pull the bag free of the rocks. Taziri shoved her sleeve back to her elbow and released her cannon. It sprang up and clicked into position as the mountain air stung her exposed skin. “Fabris! Drop the bag!”
If he heard her over the gusting wind, he made no sign of it as he continued to yank the bag back and forth.
