Deadeye tugged on my arm, pointing into the water. The gas cloud had cleared. Waves burst into foam, spray hissing through the air. We could see clearly now. Not far from shore, a slab of rock jutted up from the waves. A pale, longhaired naked girl was manacled to a massive rusty metal ring set in the stone.
She lay on her belly, unmoving and flat against the rock, one foot in the water. The waves burst against the rock, showering her, her hair, plastered to her skin.
“Death’s gate!” I exclaimed.
Deadeye spoke. “…a sacrifice, Slayer. She must be important. The Gods have her now.”
“To Hell with the Gods! Hold my E.” I handed it to Deadeye, a court-martial offense.
“Slayer, you cannot! The deep comes for her!” I dived into the frigid water. The shock almost stopped my heart. I surfaced, then struck out through the waves for the rock, just ahead. My left hand touched the rock-gritty, slime-covered stone. I pulled myself out of the water, freezing and numb. My hands tingled. She was breathing shallowly, eyes closed, her mouth open. A fragile, tender, lovely creature.
Deadeye’s voice came floating to me, as if in a dream. “Slayer! The gortron! Tell me how to shoot the E!” A black whip snapped around my neck with explosive force and yanked me off my feet, back into the water. Something sticky wrapped itself around my comtop and ripped it off with tremendous force. A torrent of freezing water rushed in on me, a red roaring in my ears, I could not breathe, something curled around my neck. Can’t see. Which way is up! I raised my hands to claw at the viselike cord around my neck. Tough leathery spikes, cutting into my hands. I could not remove it.
The strength seeped from my body. In moments I would die. Weapon, need a weapon! My hand went automatically to my hot knife, strapped to my thigh. I brought it up with numb hands and triggered it and slashed wildly around me. I could barely see the blue-white flame burning in the water. My knife met resistance, and I slashed into it with the last of my strength.
Release. Sudden release, something ripping past my neck, gone. Air! Need air! Exhausted, buffeted by waves and still underwater, I saw the knife firmly in my right hand, burning at the edge of my vision. My shoulders slowly settled on a rock. A faint glow was above me. The surface! I struggled upwards. Gortron, Deadeye had said. What in Deadman’s name is a gortron?
I surfaced in the foam of a wave breaking against the sacrificial rock, and flooded my lungs with pure, icy air. The girl was in the arms of the gortron. An obscene black tentacle slid over her body like a great water snake, a caress of death, leaving a faint trail of blood, then falling carelessly into the water. A spiky mass of wet black chitin broke the surface and a wave burst over the creature. Two horny whips snapped violently out of the water, trailing spray, cracking viciously on the girl’s naked back. Her body arched. She awoke. Another spiky tentacle snapped over her body, wrapping itself convulsively around her tiny waist. She looked into the eyes of the gortron and screamed.
I made it to the rock and seized her by an ankle with my left hand. I had my mini out now, although my frozen fingers could barely feel it. I could see the gortron, black wet eyes atop two stiff stalks of chitin, calmly gazing at us. A heavy wave broke over me; I lost my grip and grabbed her by the hair. She struggled in blind panic. If the gortron pulled further, her arms would be torn out of their sockets because of the chains. From the corner of my eye, I saw Deadeye leap into the water, his breather discarded, a knife in one hand. A knife! We had never taught the Taka how to fire the E. It had not seemed like such a good idea, until now. For our mistrust, Deadeye offered his life.
I released the girl’s hair and wrapped one arm around her neck. She screamed in panic, but I was not leaving her. A tentacle slapped onto my shoulder and snaked around my waist. The gortron rushed at us with the wave, streaming spray, its spiky beak opening to reveal a frightening maw lined with razor-sharp teeth. I aimed the mini directly into it, and fired.
The laser burst lanced through the gortron. I kept the trigger depressed, slashing the laser up and down like a whip, the beam shrieking raw white-hot pulsating energy. The gortron exploded like a punctured balloon, splattering awful green gore all over us, severed tentacles whipping wildly through the air.
Deadeye rode into the mess on a wave, shrieking, slashing his knife blindly. The gortron became a thrashing whirlpool of uncontrolled nerve endings, tentacles whipping down into the waves. I ceased fire. I still had the girl by the throat. She choked, convulsing. I loosened my grip.
The green and black remains of the beast floated around us like vomit from some distressed god. Deadeye struggled out of the water onto the rock. I helped him up.
Deadeye and the girl shivered as I burnt away the chains with my hot knife. Icy waves burst over us. The girl appeared to be in shock, glassy-eyed and helpless. “Deadeye, we have to swim back.”
“I cannot swim, Slayer.”
I pondered this for a moment, as Deadeye clung miserably to the rock close beside me, his skin slowly turning blue. He cannot swim, yet he jumps in to fight the gortron. I decided that I would teach Deadeye how to fire my E. I did not much care about regulations or consequences at that point.
I made two trips across the icy waters to the shore, first with Deadeye, then with the girl. By the time I carried her ashore, I was afraid that she might die of exposure.
I recovered my E and fired a flare into a shallow cave formed by a jumble of rubble. It burned brightly, a hot, brilliant, flaming yellow fire, spitting sparks. I picked her up again and we went inside and huddled around the flare on our knees, bathing in its warm glow. I held her close and rubbed her arms, trying to get her circulation going.
My comtop was at the bottom of the anchorage. I could not contact Beta, and there was no sign of anyone else in the vicinity. Firing another flare into the air could attract as many Cultists as Legion soldiers.
Deadeye and I held the girl close to the flare. Her eyes were open but glassy. Deadeye and I stared at her. I could hardly believe it. Freezing, in shock and soaking wet, her long hair plastered all over her shoulders, she was beautiful. I cursed the perverse logic of the Cult.
“Look away, Slayer,” Deadeye said, explaining it all.
Good advice, I thought. I did not, I could not, look away.
“Do not look at her, Slayer. She has returned from the dead, she has escaped from the Gods.” He sounded scared.
For the first time, I noticed she wore a dull black medallion on a cord around her neck. I could barely make out the emblem, a dark skull, under the crown of a king.
“Deadeye, tell me about her. Why do you look away? She is beautiful. Does she have a man? What is that symbol?”
A faint moan escaped Deadeye’s lips. “Do not think it, Slayer. You must turn your eyes away. I know this girl now. She is not of your world. She belongs to the past, and she carries the sign of the Book. This is Moontouch, of the Dark Clouds. The Cult took her to appease the Gods, and because they hate the Book. She is a princess of the House of the Past and her father is a king. She is a virgin and she can only take a loremaster for her man. She is a web-spinner and if you get too close she will take away your mind. And now she is dead. She will claim you, Slayer. I am afraid for you! You must be strong!”
I quipped, “Well, she’ll have to get in line behind Priestess and Valkyrie.”
Moontouch looked at me, as if from a long way off.
“Deadeye, does she speak Taka?”
“Yes, Slayer. She hears all, she knows all. We have both taken her from the Gods. We will die.” I had never seen Deadeye so depressed.
“What do you mean, she can only take a loremaster for her man? I thought the loremasters were all dead, that only women kept track of the past.” Atom had told us all about it. The cult of knowledge was now exclusively a female pursuit, in Sunrealm. Men knew only how to fight, and how to die.
“Yes, Slayer, it is true. She cannot marry. She sleeps only with knowledge and power. But she has died, Slayer. You took her-we took her-from the Gods.”
“You’re talking nonsense, Deadeye! We took her from the Soldiers of God, who wanted to kill her! Her father will thank us. The Dark Clouds will thank us!”
“No, Slayer. The Cult had offered her as a sacrifice to the gortron. It is a sacred ceremony. She is the Food of the Gods. You-we-took her back. She is dead, she is cursed. So are we. Cursed.”
“Is the gortron a god?”
“He is the mouth of the Sea, and the Sea is a god.”
