The giant howled and kicked out with his right foot. Koyt released the sword and dodged, but the side of that foot caught him and sent him tumbling. He drew his head up in time to see Myrana finally drop away from the giant’s back and run a few paces away. The giant made to go after her but Sellis, who still had both his swords, charged him as soon as he turned toward Myrana. Sellis chopped and sliced. He was covered with the giant’s blood already, and no doubt some of his own. But he was the bravest man Koyt had ever known, and even when the giant spun back toward him, Sellis kept up his barrage.
Koyt tried to get to his feet, wincing at the stabbing pain in his side. Some ribs broken, he was sure. Blood coated his face and his abdomen, from the claw slice across his chest and cuts to his head suffered when he fell. His sword was trapped in the giant’s arm, probably wedged in bone, but the arm swung too fast for him to risk reaching for it.
The bow, then. It was his best weapon, anyway, the one he was most comfortable with by far. He had to move fast, before the giant overwhelmed Sellis. Biting back pain, he crawled on hands and knees to where he had abandoned it. He scooped it up, its familiar heft in his hand bringing him comfort, and reached for an arrow.
The quiver was empty.
One of the times he had fallen, the arrows must have spilled out.
He didn’t have time to look. Sellis backed away, keeping his swords in motion. Blood flew through the air with every swipe. The giant reached for him, though, and if he got a hand on Sellis again, they were done. Myrana was as brave as anyone, but she was on the small side, and crippled besides. And Koyt was too badly injured to battle the giant on his own.
He had to do something, now, before the giant caught Sellis.
He slid a bone knife from a sheath on his belt. The giant’s attention was fixed on Sellis, as if those flashing swords had hypnotized him. Koyt rushed up behind the giant, jammed the knife into the back of its ankle, and sliced across the tendon there.
The giant loosed another howl as that leg buckled. He drove his fist back, barely missing Koyt. Sellis dashed forward, slashing. Myrana had gathered stones and hurled them one by one at the giant’s head, aiming for his eyes. The giant was weakening, his strength flowing from his body along with his blood. We’re going to beat him—this Koyt knew, finally, as he braved another advance, meaning to strike at the leg that still supported their foe. We’re going to win this!
He had almost reached the giant when those weird wings beat against the air, lifting the giant though his damaged leg would not. The giant’s arm darted abruptly toward Koyt, fingers splayed, and another of those long, swordlike claws pierced Koyt’s belly, driving deep. He fell back, dropping his bone knife and clapping his hands across his stomach.
Myrana’s eyes froze the tableau before her: the giant, his damaged right leg hovering just above the sand, wings slapping the wind, his hand out toward Koyt, fresh blood dripping from his claw. Sellis, swords moving as if entirely independent of one another, blades completely red with blood, dicing giant flesh into the sand. And Koyt, struggling to hold his guts inside his body even as they slipped and slid around his fingers.
The moment seemed to last for a long time. She took in odd details, like the hairs on the giant’s arms, each nearly as long as one of her own hairs, but thicker—quills, almost. The color of Koyt’s guts, pink and gray, threads of crimson on them as they passed through the bloody gash. The look in Sellis’s eyes, lost and haunted, desperation driving him on even though hope had faded.
Then it passed and things were once again a frantic whirlwind of motion and sound. She had a moment’s chance and she jabbed her dagger into the giant’s left leg several times, then darted away before he could reach her. His wings stopped flapping and he crashed to the ground, losing his balance and toppling forward. One arm swung toward Sellis but missed. Sellis took advantage of the moment, apparently casting aside all fear and diving at the giant’s head. One sword drove into the giant’s eye, the other slashing at his neck. Myrana moved in again, stabbing his broad, muscular back. She, like everyone else, was wet with the giant’s hot, thick blood, its copper tang filling every sense.
She was still stabbing him when Sellis put a hand on her shoulder. “He’s done,” Sellis said. “You can stop now, Myrana.”
She shook her head, wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. Sellis was right. The giant was still, his back an uneven landscape of gashes and cuts. She had even shredded his wings; they lay broken and twisted on his back like paper wadded up and sliced.
Then she realized who she didn’t see. “Koyt?”
Sellis shook his head. Tears sprang into Myrana’s eyes, tracked down her cheeks. She looked around and found him lying on his back, eyes wide open, jaw slack, arms out to his sides. Blood was everywhere. “No!” she cried. “Koyt!”
Sellis held her, letting her weep against his strong, bloody chest. “He saved us,” Sellis said. “Without him, we’d have all died.”
“But … but … How do we go on without Koyt?”
“I don’t know,” Sellis replied. He held her closer, moving his hand on her back. “We just do. We just go on. Koyt did what he had to. Now it’s our turn.”
Myrana swallowed, gathering herself. Life on Athas was hard, death a constant companion. You had to move past it. Sellis was right. “Now it’s our turn,” she repeated. “We just go on.”
XI
The Call of Steel
The streets of Akrankhot had not, Aric was certain, seen this much activity in a thousand years. Members of the expedition fanned out in small groups of anywhere from four to ten, searching street to street, building to building, for the metal believed to be hidden in the city. They shouted to one another constantly, people of each group checking in with the ones on the roads parallel to theirs. No one knew what terrors the city might hold, and if one group encountered something dangerous, the others wanted to be able to respond quickly.
Not every street was as prosperous as that first grand avenue they had seen, but overall, the city still seemed to have been a place of considerable wealth. Buildings had been tall, most constructed with a seeming simplicity that actually required a great deal of skill. And there were ornate touches, moldings and carved capitals atop fluted columns, friezes and murals, that gave the appearance of a population with an interest in artistic expression, and time to practice it.
It had only been a matter of weeks or months since the dunes burying the city had moved off it, but in that time, a wide variety of insect and reptilian life had moved in. Aric, Ruhm, Amoni and Damaric encountered an array of beetles, flies, ants, caterpillars, lizards and other small creatures as they explored the ruins. They also saw the beginnings of plant life, green shoots that had erupted from the earth as if welcoming the sun after such a long burial. These sights added to the impression of a city only recently deserted, rather than one left vacant even before the birth of the Shadow King, back in the mists of a forgotten age.
They covered three blocks of a narrow street, with buildings crowded so close together the sky seemed only a dull green ribbon overhead. Some doorways were open, other times they had to break through doors sealed shut by time and desert sands. Many of the homes looked as if people had walked out in the middle of their daily activities. They checked upstairs and down, to the extent allowed by the condition of the buildings, and outside one of them, Amoni made an observation. “We’ve seen that a lot of the staircases have fallen down,” she said.