His targeters flashed, his foot moved. The beast on the archer’s leg was sent smash into the wall behind them – but there were two more, three, four.
They were all over the last patrolman, claws raking huge gashes, teeth pulling chunks of flesh from his face and chest and arms. He flailed, got his hands on one and tried to yank it free but it was claws embedded and ripping out his throat and ear, his blood-matted hair was tangling round its legs.
He was trying to scream – but one was over his mouth, eating its way into his jaw.
Ecko took one long breath.
And exhaled.
The creatures roasted, shrieking, blackened and cracking, crisping scales. Beneath them, the archer gave one, shocked gasp. He inhaled flame and his face was just gone, the flesh of his shoulders cooked under charred wisps of fabric.
Tarvi was staring at him, open-mouthed.
But Pareus gave a rallying cry, defiant and enraged. He was bleeding from gashes in his sword arm. As Ecko glanced, he slammed his boot down on another beast, smashing it against the broken stone.
There were too many of them.
Ecko saw another of the patrol go down, screaming, under a welter of sinew and scale. More and more of them were breaching the barricade. His targeters were half blinding him, tracking movement too fast to follow. A spearwoman fell and they were all over her. She struggled to sit up but they flowed up her back and into her hair. He heard her skull crack under the pressure of needle-sharp teeth.
The critters’ shrieks rose to a crescendo. Frenzied, they tore at each other in an effort to reach the prize.
“To me!” Pareus called again, but his patrol had been torn to pieces round him – there was almost no one left to hear his courage.
Ecko slammed a foot down on one, kicked another off the top of the wall – but they were still coming.
If he exhaled again, he’d empty the tanks – his little flamer was never meant to be used...
He snatched a lump of stone from the floor and slammed it down on the wall top, crushing the beasts to a smear.
In answer to Pareus’s cry, one of the shieldmen fell back, came to stand beside the commander, defend them both. Pareus’s flicker-fast blade was clearing the wall before him – between he and Ecko they were holding their side of the defence.
The other remaining shieldman unbuckled his shield and threw it from him, unable to bear the weight of the creatures upon it, claws fastened in the wood. He tried to rally, but they dragged him down, their ecstatic shrieks ripping the sky.
They flowed over him like a scaled death shroud, flashing with teeth and claws.
For just an instant, he was tempted to let it go.
...then one of the critters swarmed under Pareus’s foot and closed on Tarvi; shreds of flesh still caught between its teeth.
She screamed, shrill and furious, as it ran up the front of her leg. Its teeth were bared, it grinned up at her.
Instinctively, the shieldman turned.
And they were on him.
Pareus cried horrified denial as if he’d never been so scared in his life. As his shout rose into the darkening air, the shieldman’s turn spiralled into a delicate slump, down onto to the stone.
The creatures had torn out his lower legs. They flowed upwards as he fell, raking his flesh, tearing muscle from bone, worrying at him like street dogs. Blood slashed the fire-damaged stone.
The shield hit the ground, spun for a moment, and lay still, Fhaveonic device glinting in the setting sun.
Ecko had one shot at this.
“Get behind me,” he said.
Tarvi moved. Pareus was a split second too slow.
As the commander turned from the wall top, one threw itself at him, claws hooked in his cheek. Its weight dragged it downwards, slicing through soft skin, opening a second mouth in the side of the commander’s face. Dropping his sword, Pareus made a grab for it, but it hooked round him like a pet and ravened its teeth into his cheekbone.
His face splintered under the force of its jaws.
His eyes burning with pain, fury, outrage, he grabbed the thing and yanked it off him, taking half of his own face off with it. Bone shone white through a mask of gore.
There was another one on his feet, and another.
“Go,” he said. The word was barely recognisable. Astoundingly, he leaned down to pick up the sword and another one was on his wrist, his forearm. “Run! Now!”
Tarvi was over the gore-smattered wall where Ecko had cleared the route.
Ecko was going after her.
As soon as he’d done one last thing.
With a silent farewell to the commander, he exhaled his final breath of fire.
17: REDLOCK
ROVIARATH
The man came out of the tavern to see three of them waiting for him.
It was raining, rattling on the mica and soaking into worn wooden walls, rivulets of dirt ran down the roadway.
He looked from face to face and said quietly, “Walk away.”
“Never happen.” The biggest of the three grinned. “You owe him – and you know it.”
The rain was warm on the man’s face. He rested his hands on the axeheads, shafts slung through twin rings at his belt.
“I owe him shit,” he said. “Now walk. Away.”
They went to grab him, force him up against the door.
With a thumb flick and a double rasp, both axes were free. The heads were real white-metal, glistening grey in the rain. One swift sidestep buried them in the ribcage of the first. The second hit the dirt when a tight, laced-up boot slammed into his groin.
The third, barely more than a lad, backed up, white faced, hands spread wide. The axeman planted his foot on the remnant of his attacker’s chest and yanked both axeheads free, dragging ribs and lungs out into the dirt. The man coughed, spluttered gore and died, his final gasp lost in the rain.
The roadway was turning to mud.
The second man lay on his side, knees up and hands clamped between his thighs. He was white to his lips, unable to stand.
“Next time,” the axeman said. “Walk away when I tell you.”
“Sure,” the lad mumbled. Carefully not looking at the corpse, not looking at it, he picked up his stricken mate, and the pair of them splashed away.
“Idiots.” Redlock wiped both axes on the dead guy’s breeches, kicked him clear of the tavern door, and went back to his goblet.
* * *
