Monster Planet(36)

The Least outweighed her by a factor of five to one. He was a lot stronger and she could only kill him by destroying his brain. He only needed to snap her neck or cut her with his ragged giant fingernails until she bled out. She couldn't outlast him either'the undead never got tired, never needed to rest. The good news was that he was an idiot, a slow idiot.

She really, really, really wished she still had her AK-47.

Wishing didn't make things happen'she needed to get her head on straight. Rubbing her hands together to get her blood pumping she fell into a fighter's crouch, her center of gravity low to the ground, her knees unlocked. She prepared herself for his first attack. It would come hard and as fast as he could make it, she knew. He didn't have the brains to try anything fancy.

'Ooh, I think she's in the mood, folks,' the green phantom announced, and the zealots all laughed. She was pretty sure most of them didn't speak English but if they had enough faith it didn't matter. 'There's one more thing, though, one thing she didn't count on!'

The crowd parted behind him and someone stepped slowly out onto the deck with what looked like a very painful gait. Not surprising. It was a ghoul, a shirtless dead man, and he had been impaled on something huge and sharp. It had a handle on one end, a curved grip big enough for the Least to hold. As he came closer she saw it was a chainsaw nearly as long as Ayaan was tall.

The Least grabbed the handle and pulled it free in a red gout of decomposing flesh and dried up blood. The ghoul who had carried the weapon split neatly in half, from his throat to his groin, his head hanging from his neck by a flap of skin. Ayaan swore in the Prophet's name. What perverse pleasure they took, these liches, in distorting the human frame. The shirtless ghoul existed for one purpose only: to be a walking scabbard.

Ayaan didn't have time for blasphemies, though. She needed to focus on the weapon. Hand weapons ought to be useless to the undead, even to liches. They couldn't muster the motor skills to slash or lunge properly. It seemed that the Tsarevich's armorers had considered that possibility and found for the Least a weapon that required only a minimum of finesse. A cord dangled from the end of the handle. The Least pulled on it and the chainsaw roared with the noise of a gasoline engine starting up.

'Good luck,' the green phantom said, sneering at her. Then it began.





Monster Planet





Chapter Nineteen


The chainsaw came for her with a scream and raised sparks from the deck plates, gouging a bright silver wound in the fresh paint. Ayaan stepped aside, tried to circle around the Least. She ducked as the chainsaw bounced off the deck and back into the air, then lunged forward and slammed both fists against the Least's knee.

Nothing. She might have punched Jello for the same effect. The Least's enormous body was covered in a thick layer of fat that absorbed all the energy she put into her swing.

While she was absorbing that information the lich wound up for another pass. The audience went wild as he whirled the chainsaw over his head and brought it down in a swinging arc that missed Ayaan's chest by centimeters. She staggered back, away from the howling metal'she could feel the friction heat of the blade. Too close, much too close for comfort. She jumped back, tried to get away. The chainsaw bit down again, light glaring off the polished blade. She pivoted on one foot, tried to slip under the attack'and pain exploded all down her arm.

Ayaan dropped to the deck, grabbing her arm high up near the shoulder, horrified. Had he gotten a vein, an artery? If he'd cut too deep, if he'd cut open a major blood vessel she would bleed to death in minutes. She had to know, had to assess the wound but she didn't have a moment's respite. The whining blade kept flashing down, left, right, center and all she could do was roll around on the deck.

The Least came at her again, looming over her, moving in for the kill. Ayaan struggled up into a crouch and ducked between his legs. Shrieking in confusion he swung the chainsaw around, tracking her, failing to watch his swing. As the blade flew around it cut right into the throat of one of the onlookers'a living cultist, a thirtyish man with a stubbled chin and thick rimless glasses. Blood flashed across the deck, stained everything as he went down in convulsions and horrible liquid grunting noises. Screams went up from the audience, screams of terror from one side, screams of bloodlust from the other.

Ayaan didn't waste the diversion. Head down she bulled into the crowd, shoving some zealots aside, jumping at others as they shied away from her. Finally she had a chance to check her arm and her stomach went weightless for a moment as she brushed blood away from her wound. It wasn't fatal'a lot more than just a scratch but the bleeding had mostly stopped on its own.