City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(102)
He struggles against it; the tentacle maintains its grip, even though he can see it is sizzling where it touches him. Urav growls in pain and fury, gnaws at the ice, chopping it into coarse snow, No. No, I will not let you go.
Sigrud hacks at the tentacle once, twice with the halberd. This proves enough to weaken its grip, and with a low pop, Sigrud squirts free.
Praise the seas, thinks Sigrud as he runs, for cows with rich diets. …
“Shoot!” shouts Nesrhev from up above. “Pepper the damn thing!”
Bolts whiz through the air, plunk into the ice. Many bite into Urav’s hide; it screeches wildly, thrashes against the sailing line, which thrums like a guitar string.
Sigrud reaches the second fishing spear, but Urav is now focused on the men on the bridge. Its tentacles rise like a swarm of cobras and strike at the bridge above. There is a chorus of shrieks; two bodies twirl through the air, falling from the far side of the bridge. Please, thinks Sigrud, do not be Shara.
One tentacle curls down, a struggling police officer clutched in its grip, and stuffs the man into Urav’s gaping mouth. A huge crack as the ice begins to protest against the battle.
This, thinks Sigrud, is not what I wanted.
He runs forward, halberd clutched under one arm, and throws the second fishing spear. He very nearly misses as the creature thrashes against the rope, but the spear finds it way deep into Urav’s back. Urav howls again and whips around. The yellow eye glares at him. Sigrud catches the quickest glimpse of a tentacle speeding at him like a tree trunk rushing down a river; then the world explodes in stars and lights and he goes sliding across the ice.
He expects another attack: it doesn’t come. Groaning, he lifts his head and sees that Urav has turned in the ropes and is now tangled; the sailing rope from the first spear he threw, however, has snapped, so the tangle is not permanent.
Sigrud growls, shakes his head, tests his limbs: they work, more or less. The halberd is beside him, but it has snapped, making it more like a short axe. He picks it up and trots toward the third and final fishing spear.
Get it tangled, he thinks. Let it wear itself out, then beat it to death. Hack at its lungs until it drowns, drowns in its own blood. …
Stones begin to plummet from the Solda Bridge.
Unless, he thinks, it tears the bridge apart. …
He watches as Urav strikes the bridge over and over again. More small stones tumble into the water.
He wishes Nesrhev had never given the command to fire. He wishes Urav had stayed focused on him, only him.
This is why I hate being helped.
Urav’s thrashing has shredded almost all the ice under the bridge; the chunk with Sigrud’s final fishing spear in it bobs up and down like the floater of a fishing pole. With a sigh, Sigrud dives into the water—the cold is like a hammer to his head—swims to it, pulls the spear free, and tugs on the rope until it pulls him to sturdier ice.
His limbs are numb; his hands and feet report that they no longer exist. Urav twists against the rope, opens its mouth to shriek; Sigrud doesn’t hesitate, and hurls the fishing spear into the roof of the creature’s mouth.
It wails in pain, twists, fights against its many bonds, exposing its soft, black, jelly-like underside.
Now.
He rushes forward with the halberd, dodges a tentacle, slides over on the ice, clambers to his feet. …
He is past the fence of swirling tentacles. He begins mercilessly hacking at the creature’s belly.
Urav howls, yammers, shrieks, struggles. Black blood rains on Sigrud in a torrent. His body reports either icy cold or boiling heat. He keeps slashing, keeps hacking.
He remembers burying the bones in his courtyard.
He brings the halberd down.
He remembers looking up in his jail cell and seeing a needle of sunlight poking through, and trying to cradle that tiny pinhole of light in his hands.
He brings the halberd down.
He remembers watching the shores of his homeland fade away from the deck of the Saypuri dreadnought.
He brings the halberd down. Eventually he realizes he is screaming.
I curse the world not for what was stolen from me, but for revealing it was never stolen long after the world had made me a different man.
Urav groans, whines. The tentacles go slack. The beast seems to deflate, slowly falling back like an enormous, black tree. The many ropes twang and whine with the weight, and Urav hangs in their net, defeated.
Sigrud is dimly aware of cheering up on the bridge. But he can still see the organs inside the creature pumping and churning. Not dead, not dead yet …
A bright gold eye surfaces from the sea of tentacles at his feet. It narrows, examining him.
Suddenly the limp tentacles are not limp: they fly up, grab the weakest leg of the bridge, and pull.
Sigrud is briefly aware of a dark shadow appearing on his right, and growing; then a huge stone pierces the ice mere yards away.
Sigrud says, “Shi—”
The ice below him tips up like a seesaw, and he is thrown forty feet at least. Then he knows nothing but the cold and the water.
He feels water beat on his nose and mouth. A stream worms its way into his sinuses, tickles his lungs, almost evoking a cough.
Do not drown.
Air burns inside of him. He turns over, looks up; the sky is molten crystal, impenetrable.
Do not drown.
He can see Urav above him, fighting against the ropes. Above the creature is a solid black arch: the bridge.