shimmer.
Otokas hesitated on the water's edge, looking up and down the shore, smelling humans somewhere near, and smouldering pitch, but Attalissa pushed past him. She gave a little sigh as the wavelets broke caressingly around her knees, pulling her out like gentle hands.
Light flared on the water from above, and voices shouted. Arrows hissed into the lake around them.
Attalissa dove.
Sword in hand, Otokas spun to face the raiders sliding down the sloping rock face by the crack. A watch posted and waiting. The wizard must have divined for hidden exits; no one had ever known of this but the goddess and her most senior servants.
Or they were betrayed. That was the dog's instinctive distrust of the world.
Head for the south shore! he ordered Attalissa, and then they were on him, half a dozen men and women, and another group caught from the corner of his eye, scrambling along the rocks. Two men pushed off in a light boat, shouting directions at one another, pursuing faint ripples that might only be the wind.
The first to close with him was a Grasslander woman, and he kicked her legs from under her, stabbed down as she struggled, on her back in the water and the stones beneath her slippery with algae. He blocked another's slashing stroke from the left and was struck from behind, a sword's edge turned by his armour but the blow drove him to a knee, waist-deep in the lake. Too many of them for the man alone to fight. He dropped his sword and let the Blackdog take him.
A moment of searing pain as the dog tore fully through into the world, flesh and bone and fury. A man screamed and gurgled and kicked the water to a froth, throat bitten through. He crushed another's thighbone in his jaws, flung that one into deeper water to drown like a pup throwing a rat. It was a nightmare, one that haunted his sleep, memories of past lives: the taste of blood, the softness of muscle and the crack of bone, of steel as he bit through a blade he disdained to dodge, the eager joy in the enemies’ screams.
They hurt him, cut him, burned him while they still had torches, but the Blackdog was spirit and could not die so easily, and the man would heal from most wounds. Otokas did not care if he did not, once he had let the Blackdog loose. He lived, and died, to protect Attalissa. There were twelve dead in the water and at the water's edge and two on shore who ran. He bounded after the slowest, ran him down, snapping through the rings of his byrnie to throw him by his shoulder, tearing his arm half off, a second bite through his windpipe and he raced after the last. She still carried a spear and as he leapt she turned and hurled it. It took him under a foreleg in an earlier stab-wound already half-closed, and he stumbled, rolled, shattered the hampering spear-shaft with teeth that could break stone and steel, and bit through her throat.
The boat still cut through the water, chasing phantoms of moonlight and wave. Attalissa would be deep, below any reach of their sight or weapons. One stood in the bow, arms full of fishing net. He pitched overboard when the Blackdog rose from the water, a hound the size of a yearling yak swarming into the boat, nearly swamping it, and went down struggling in his tangled cords. The other screamed, tried to lift an oar from its tholepin to use as a weapon, and choked in his own blood, throat crushed and torn.
All of them. Safe. He could rejoin the goddess. They would not be followed, for a little while.
Blood seeped sluggishly around the spearhead and he licked it, tasting it. Warm, salt, human.
For Otokas, it was a killing blow, beyond any power of the spirit's to heal. He knew. The Blackdog host had died in battle before, more than once, and once by treachery, and many times more an easy, gentle death in his bed, an old man in whom the Blackdog could no longer maintain health and strength. Death was easy. It was leaving Attalissa's care to another that was hard. But the dog could keep life in him a while
Otokas hesitated on the water's edge, looking up and down the shore, smelling humans somewhere near, and smouldering pitch, but Attalissa pushed past him. She gave a little sigh as the wavelets broke caressingly around her knees, pulling her out like gentle hands.
Light flared on the water from above, and voices shouted. Arrows hissed into the lake around them.
Attalissa dove.
Sword in hand, Otokas spun to face the raiders sliding down the sloping rock face by the crack. A watch posted and waiting. The wizard must have divined for hidden exits; no one had ever known of this but the goddess and her most senior servants.
Or they were betrayed. That was the dog's instinctive distrust of the world.
Head for the south shore! he ordered Attalissa, and then they were on him, half a dozen men and women, and another group caught from the corner of his eye, scrambling along the rocks. Two men pushed off in a light boat, shouting directions at one another, pursuing faint ripples that might only be the wind.
The first to close with him was a Grasslander woman, and he kicked her legs from under her, stabbed down as she struggled, on her back in the water and the stones beneath her slippery with algae. He blocked another's slashing stroke from the left and was struck from behind, a sword's edge turned by his armour but the blow drove him to a knee, waist-deep in the lake. Too many of them for the man alone to fight. He dropped his sword and let the Blackdog take him.
A moment of searing pain as the dog tore fully through into the world, flesh and bone and fury. A man screamed and gurgled and kicked the water to a froth, throat bitten through. He crushed another's thighbone in his jaws, flung that one into deeper water to drown like a pup throwing a rat. It was a nightmare, one that haunted his sleep, memories of past lives: the taste of blood, the softness of muscle and the crack of bone, of steel as he bit through a blade he disdained to dodge, the eager joy in the enemies’ screams.
They hurt him, cut him, burned him while they still had torches, but the Blackdog was spirit and could not die so easily, and the man would heal from most wounds. Otokas did not care if he did not, once he had let the Blackdog loose. He lived, and died, to protect Attalissa. There were twelve dead in the water and at the water's edge and two on shore who ran. He bounded after the slowest, ran him down, snapping through the rings of his byrnie to throw him by his shoulder, tearing his arm half off, a second bite through his windpipe and he raced after the last. She still carried a spear and as he leapt she turned and hurled it. It took him under a foreleg in an earlier stab-wound already half-closed, and he stumbled, rolled, shattered the hampering spear-shaft with teeth that could break stone and steel, and bit through her throat.
The boat still cut through the water, chasing phantoms of moonlight and wave. Attalissa would be deep, below any reach of their sight or weapons. One stood in the bow, arms full of fishing net. He pitched overboard when the Blackdog rose from the water, a hound the size of a yearling yak swarming into the boat, nearly swamping it, and went down struggling in his tangled cords. The other screamed, tried to lift an oar from its tholepin to use as a weapon, and choked in his own blood, throat crushed and torn.
All of them. Safe. He could rejoin the goddess. They would not be followed, for a little while.
Blood seeped sluggishly around the spearhead and he licked it, tasting it. Warm, salt, human.
For Otokas, it was a killing blow, beyond any power of the spirit's to heal. He knew. The Blackdog host had died in battle before, more than once, and once by treachery, and many times more an easy, gentle death in his bed, an old man in whom the Blackdog could no longer maintain health and strength. Death was easy. It was leaving Attalissa's care to another that was hard. But the dog could keep life in him a while
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