This day was no exception. Betul fired once, tried again: nothing. But Riordan had heard the incomplete cycling of the bolt, knew what had happened: “Jam! Cycle the action, Qwara!”
Qwara Betul was either too terrified, too surprised, or too unfamiliar with the terms to react quickly enough. Instead, she tried firing again, to no avail.
Caine ran past her. “Just run. Now!” He brandished his combo-axe at the scattered creatures just coming up the shore, and shouted at them. But the words of his shout were also a signaclass="underline" “Dora! Cover fire!”
The creatures stopped for a moment.
“Dora!”
But she was gone, was too fast. And the creatures were edging forward.
Damn it: if they charge Qwara now—
Riordan yelled at the ugly predators again: no words, just an animal howl. They froze in midstride; Caine jumped into the stream and made for the end of the median, finding the footing on the rocks swift, but dangerous. If he slipped or tripped just once — but he didn’t and evidently, that was the last direction the creatures had expected their prey to go.
The barrel-chested predators spent a moment in indecision, and then the largest ones went after the main group: more meat in that direction. A trio of smaller specimens, probably having learned that they did not get much of the kill when they competed with their bigger pack mates, veered after Riordan.
Who was already charging up the far shore. Far behind, he heard his name being shouted: no time for that now. He just hoped that Qwara had been able to use the momentary distraction to break out of her panic and run like hell. Riordan scanned the median: there wasn’t even a tree large enough for him to climb. He could always try his risky backup plan: to push out into the reunited currents of the river and swim over to the rocky outcropping—
But beyond the further, narrower stream, he spotted the distinctive shape of a large cone tree, alone among indigenous vegetation. It almost came down to the water’s edge, and was cinched close against a rock face on the downstream side. The clearance under the lower margin of its canopy was less than a meter.
Riordan’s decision was as much instinct as tactical insight: under that tree, his rear flank was protected by a sheer rock face. Along the rest of its perimeter, enemies would have to hunker down to get at him and so, lose their speed and leaping advantages. He sprinted into the stream on the other side of the median, discovered the light was failing.
As he waded through the midcourse currents and heard the creatures skitter to a stop on the bank he’d just left, his collarcom paged. Again, no time. With one hand clutching the pseudo-axe and the other out before him to maintain balance, Riordan sloshed through the accelerating, groin-deep current. Behind him, the predators jumped into the water and started picking their comparatively hesitant way after him.
Caine came up on the far shore, raced along the dark ribbon of muddy silt that led all the way to the cone tree. It would be close; he had a decent head start and had gained on them during the crossing, but once on the shore they were much faster. As he neared the tree’s canopy, he saw hints of light under it, hoped he wasn’t jumping from a frying pan into a fire, and, hearing the pattering of speedy pursuers behind him, dove forward at an angle. His sideways roll carried him under the lowest branches and sent him banging over a washboard of crisscrossing roots.
The first of his three pursuers fetched up outside the canopy, ducked its head under to get a look—
Riordan, axe cocked as he came up from his roll, swung hard.
The creature saw the movement, flinched its head back, scream-clattered as a glancing blow tore a divot out of a cartilaginous flap that might have been an ear. Furious, ravening, the other two angled apart with the innate tactical insight of all predators; any prey can be brought down if it can be flanked. Caine cocked the axe back again, wondered how long this could go on—
A monstrous, outraged foghorn roar froze him and the predators midaction: a savage tableau illuminated by pink and violet seedpod-lanterns now brightening in the cone tree’s undercanopy. A great rush of water swept under its low boughs from the direction of the riverbank, where something large, terribly large, was rising up, torrents of water pouring off the sides of its shadowy bulk, obscured by the leaves of the tree.
The predators inched back, muted castanet-clatters vying with shrill warbles and yelps as they made a show of standing their ground. But the foghorn-hooting — the same made by the dimly seen gargantua which had ended the pirhannows’ attack upon Hirano — sounded again, and a broad, spatulate foot thudded down into the shore-silt so hard that gouts of the sandy black sludge sprayed under the tree and toward the predators.
All of which promptly ran, making sounds akin to fighting tomcats as, scalded by terror, they leaped off into the underbrush.
The foot in the silt remained planted there for a long moment, then, wavering, turned, moved back out toward the water. But the creature did not seem to be leaving. Instead, it seemed to be brushing along the riverside periphery of the cone tree’s canopy, searching—
With a blast of musk and mist, two immense legs forced open a gap in the cone tree’s shoots and branches. The legs bent and with one surprisingly deft dipping motion, the blunt body of the river-striding behemoth was crouching under the ten-meter canopy of the tree. Its head, not much more than a trough-jawed protrusion of its body, swiveled toward Caine, a pair of round, wide eyes both above and below the gaping maw. Jaw-lining light sensors pulsed and bulged in his direction as well. The gigantic animal staggered toward him, a grumble rising up out of its gut like a chorus of bears waking up from hibernation.
Riordan, panting, looked up at the creature, hefted his ax ironically, and wondered: so does he stomp me or bite me?
Chapter Thirty-Six. SOUTHERN EXTENTS OF THE THIRD SILVER TOWER BD +02 4076 TWO (“DISPARITY”)
The water-strider stared down at Caine, leaned slightly closer. Riordan watched the extraordinarily wide mouth of the creature, held the futile axe ready, but did not move it.
The water-strider snuffled at him, then blew out a great, surprisingly sweet, breath — a mélange of lilies and ginger — and swayed unevenly away.
Caine forgot his fear as the creature’s unsteadiness caught his attention: is it weak or—?
And then Riordan noticed that the ground around the creature was not just wet from its steadily dripping pelt; there was a faintly iridescent maroon spattering that did not readily mix with the water. Caine traced it, found that it was streaming down one of the water-strider’s immense, bowed legs, which was quivering. Riordan looked more closely—
Pirhannows, by the scores, had worked themselves into the creature’s short fur. And now that he knew what to look for, Riordan saw them everywhere, writhing along the water-strider’s belly, around its mouth, up near its haunches, and at a few points on the strange, almost antennalike protrusions that lay along its back to either side of its spine.
The water-strider took two more staggering steps away from Caine, revealing the pulverized remains of several orange water lilies stuck to its far flank. The strider crouched low and slowly slid on to its side, where it preceded to roll fretfully to and fro, apparently trying to cake dirt on its innumerable wounds.