Michelle’s rifle came up to the aim. “Damn you. You’re the one who put that rifle in my hand. I never forget a voice. I’m rotten on faces. But if I hadn’t been so damned confused, I would have known two days ago. I would have known!”
The other Gamers turned to watch.
“Listen.” Hippogryph was licking his lips nervously, staring at the bore of that rifle. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that-”
She fired once, twice, three times. She howled, “Liar!”
Marty felt impacts; he felt his parka twitch. He looked down and saw dimpled cavities ripped through the parka. He could hear the click click click as Michelle Sturgeon tried to shoot him again.
Blood filled the holes in his parka and dribbled down. Marty dropped his rifle. Unbelieving and unwilling, he ripped the Velcro apart, pulled open the quilted cloth over his chest and belly, and saw red coils of intestine beginning to bulge through torn flaps of skin.
Hippogryph screamed. He pulled his jacket closed, convulsively, and ran stumbling into the white mist. They heard his screams diminish, then chop off sharply.
Another explosion. Eviane cursed and covered her ringing ears with her hands, then dropped them; she’d need her hands for fighting.
They’d been distracted a moment too long, and the immense figure of the Terichik loomed over them.
Orson shouted and pointed.
The entire sky was blotted out by a shadow which had grown so gradually that none of them had noticed it. Suddenly, with no more fanfare than that, the Raven was there. It filled the sky; its wingspan defined the horizon. It was huge beyond any ordinary concept of size.
It swooped past. The wind from the impossibly huge wings almost knocked them flat. Cawing, it disappeared into the clouds.
“We’re screeewed,” Orson started. “I thought he came to help us. Why-”
“Look!” Charlene Dula pointed to the horizon. Striding toward them on legs the size of redwood trees, swathed in furs and carrying a hunting-axe the size of a skyscraper, came Torngarsoak, Lord of the Hunt and Sedna’s lover. Summoned by the Raven and fueled by a terrible mission of vengeance, Torngarsoak came, his round, weather-creased face aflame with rage, black eyes flashing lightning, the aurora borealis writhing about his ears like a crown of glory.
The Terichik squealed in terror and reared back, hissing and swallowing air to increase its size, inflating like an angry cobra.
Ahk-lut and Torngarsoak were matched for size, but the Lord of the Hunt seemed unimpressed by the Terichik’s efforts.
In a blur of speed, the Terichik struck, fanged cilia darting out to rend, to tear and grasp.
Torngarsoak sidestepped, his booted feet smashing through the ice, sending a tidal wave of freezing water thundering to shore. Suddenly the hunter was thigh-deep.
It should have slowed him… but the Terichik’s lunge carried it past Torngarsoak, and now Sedna’s lover was behind the beast, thundering through the ocean, every step rending sheets of ice that might have locked a freighter dead.
Ahk-lut turned to strike again, and as he did, Torngarsoak’s axe clove the air. Ahk-lut barely snaked his serpentine head out of the way in time.
The mass of Torngarsoak’s weapon carried considerable momentum. The Lord of the Hunt spun a little past his target. The Terichik lunged in, and Torngarsoak sprang back out of reach, his awful weight thundering like the detonation of thousand-pound bombs.
The two antagonists circled each other in the shallow sea, probing for openings, weaknesses, as the Gamers watched ashore, mouths open, silent and awestruck.
Torngarsoak swung back with the axe And let it fall, lunged forward, grasped the Terichik’s neck in both hands, and locked his furred legs around the scaly thickness of its body.
It hissed, it wiggled and writhed, it coiled about him and sought his face and throat with its teeth. Torngarsoak held on, and the two antagonists fell into the ocean together.
The Terichik gouged Torngarsoak’s face, fastened its teeth into his arm. The Lord of the Hunt screamed in pain, but never let go, and although blood — flowed from the wounds, the Adventurers saw the god’s fingers sink into the Terichik’s flesh.
With greater and more frantic exertions the monster struggled, but Sedna’s lover hung on. They rolled together onto the shore. Adventurers and Eskimos alike fled from their path, and the blackened skeleton of a hypersonic jet was smashed to ashes beneath them.
Finally Torngarsoak sat astride the Terichik, hands crushing out the monster’s life. The god threw his head back and laughed hugely, a terrible, primal laugh, the blood running down his face, down his arms, and into the distorted face of the Terichik.
The Terichik spasmed, and then, unexpectedly, began to shrink.
Torngarsoak stood up, shaking the blood from his face, and walked out into the surf. He recovered his axe, and turned, watched as the Terichik continued to shrink. Then he lifted his bloody hand in salute to them, turned, and walked straight out into the ocean.
Far beyond him, a wet black mass burst up through the ice. It was as big as the Terichik, too big to be bothered by bullets. Eviane was ready to fire anyway, before she recognized the face beneath dripping black locks.
Sedna smiled, and submerged. Torngarsoak kept walking until the ice rose above his head.
The Gamers walked toward the dead, shrinking Terichik. It fluxed, changing shape. It was only the size of an elephant now, and assuming the shape of a man-the shape of Ahk-lut.
And finally they stood around the still, naked corpse, the ravaged body of the dead Eskimo wizard. Just a man after all. A dead, defeated man.
For a moment there was stunned silence, and then the Eskimos, men, women, and children, emerged from hiding places around the battlefield, and gaped, and pointed, and (a few) screamed in triumph.
The five survivors formed a group hug and looked at each other. Dirty, grimy, exhausted, and-and ecstatic.
Then the lights came on, and the Game was over.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Griffin felt sick. He wanted nothing more than to smash or bury the sorry object in front of him, but he had to deal with it, had to question it. He had no idea what he would do with it afterward.
“All right, ‘Hippogryph.’ How much did they pay you?”
With immense effort, Marty looked up. For the first time in many hours, his eyes focused; for the first time, there were tears. “Griff? I don’t understand. I’m dead. She shot me-”
“She had the right!”
Marty waved it off. “Griff. Where did she get the bullets?”
Griffin turned away. Vail said, “You got caught.”
“Caught.”
“Here.” Vail set his tape going. He was still brisk, and it jarred.
Marty’s wobbly eyes found the right screen. He watched himself and Charlene in the ice cave… brow furrowed, indignation trying to surface…
Harmony’s attitude seemed to vary: vindication, anger, and apprehensive nausea. Sandy Khresla and Tom Izumi showed barely suppressed rage. Dwight Welles wore an air of almost academic speculation. He doesn’t care enough, Griffin thought.
Vail was enjoying the vivisection enough for all of them. “Watch the graphs. You told Charlene Dula you’d
