Robert Sawyer - Far-Seer

He swung to look at the skirmish line. Every imperial loyalist was engaged by a Lubalite. Jaws snapped. Claws tore. Blood washed stones, dappled the hides of mounts, smeared muzzles of individuals on both sides. With a bone-crunching crack, Cadool saw Pahs-Drawo from Carno dispatch a loyalist atop a running beast, but then watched in horror as Drawo himself fell victim to a choreographed lunge by Yenalb’s spikefrill, the beast’s huge nose horn impaling Drawo, running through his gut like a fingerclaw through rotted wood.

Yenalb stood on his hind legs atop the spikefrill, dewlap puffed into a giant ruby ball—

Cadool was sickened. To be stimulated in that way by this… Chest heaving, vision blurring, Cadool had one last clear thought before he gave himself over to the madness: Yenalb was his.

Afsan knew there was nothing he could do, but he tried anyway. The cries of wingfingers, the thunderous calls of shovelmouths, the pounding of feet all drowned his words.

“Stop!” he shouted in the loudest volume his raw throat could manage. “Stop!”

But it would not— could not—stop.

Suddenly Afsan felt the shovelmouth he was standing on buck wildly in panic. Afsan shared the beast’s emotion as he found himself catapulted through the air. In his perpetual darkness, he had no idea where he was going to land. Air whipping about him, he quickly rolled into a ball, tucking his muzzle into his chest, wrapping his arms over his head, retracting his legs as much as possible, and folding his tail up and around.

Screams…

His own…

And then he hit—

Cadool slid down the rump of the boss-nosed beast, lashed out with his claws to stop a toppled loyalist who tried to intercept him, and made a dead run for the high priest.

Det-Yenalb had been shouting orders through his speaking cone, but each successive proclamation became less recognizable speech and more animalistic hiss and growl. His spikefrill had tipped its head low and was using a stubby forefoot to pull what was left of Pahs-Drawo off its nasal horn.

Suddenly Yenalb became aware of the charging Cadool. He yanked on the two largest of the giant spikes that protruded from his mount’s neck frill, as if to get the beast’s attention. It looked up, Drawo now discarded, just in time to try to intercept the butcher. The spikefrill’s beak snapped viciously at Cadool, but Cadool danced and weaved to stay out of its way.

The square was too crowded. The spikefrill couldn’t turn enough to get at him. Cadool leapt again, this time grabbing two of the spikes coming out of the crest of bone around the beast’s neck. He used these as handholds, pulling himself up onto the creature’s back. Yenalb tried to push him off, but the priest was no match for the butcher, none at all… Cadool opened his jaws wide, let out a primal roar, and—

This is for Pahs-Drawo!—

Snapped his mouth shut on Yenalb’s dewlap, ripping it open, air hissing out—

—And this is for Afsan!—

Taking a second, deeper bite into the priest’s meaty throat, serrated teeth ripping through muscle and cartilage and tendons, a semi-ten of Cadool’s fangs popping free as his jaws banged closed against Yenalb’s cervical vertebrae—

And this is for the truth!—

But suddenly the animal beneath him was shaking—the whole square was shaking—

Through the haze of instinct, Cadool thought some great monster—a thunderbeast giant, like the one Afsan had felled on his first hunt—had made it into the city, the guards having left their stations to be here.

But, no, the rumbling continued, the shaking growing more pronounced, the horizon jumping wildly—

Afsan was sure he had lost consciousness upon hitting the ground, but for an instant or for many daytenths, he couldn’t tell.

He heard the crowd rioting around him, screams of Quintaglios pushed into fighting rapture.

Afsan’s left side hurt badly. He knew he’d cracked some of the ribs that were attached to his backbone, as well as some of the free-floating ones that normally lay across the belly. He’d also knocked out a few teeth…

And then, suddenly the ground began to shake. I’m to die here , he thought, crushed under some giant beast, in the same square I thought I was going to die in all those days ago.

But the shaking wasn’t because of footfalls, wasn’t because of stampeding reptiles.

The ground shook—

—and shook—

Animals screamed.

Landquake.

Cadool listened to terrified roars of the animals, then stole a glance at the cobblestones below. Pebbles and dirt jumped.

Fear washed through him. In an instant, his fury was forgotten. He looked at the corpse of Yenalb, flopped on the back of the spikefrill, twin geysers of blood shooting from where the nearly severed head still joined the chest. Cadool pushed the body from the spikefrill’s back, letting it fall to the heaving ground. The head twisted around as it landed, facing backwards. The beast next to the spikefrill—an armorback whose old rider was cowering in fear—panicked as the land continued to quake. It moved backwards, trampling what was left of the high priest.

Throughout the square, Cadool could see statues tottering on their pedestals. As he watched, Pador’s great marble rendition of the Prophet Larsk wobbled back and forth a few times, then toppled to the stones, crushing a hapless hunter beneath it.

Many of the riding beasts were bucking, and it was only a matter of time before a stampede would begin. Some of the Quintaglios were already hurrying to get out of the square, even though it was probably better to be here in an open space rather than near any buildings.

For an instant, Cadool thought the spikefrill was bucking, trying to throw him from its back, but he realized in horror that the whole square was lifting, heaving, like a slumbering monster shuddering into wakefulness.

The One! thought Cadool. What about The One?

Several of the hornfaces near him turned and charged out of the square, their round feet crushing whatever happened to be beneath them. But Cadool was a butcher; he knew the ancient art of guiding animals.

Standing erect on the beast’s back, he grabbed firmly onto an upward-angled spike on either side of the frill.

Spikefrills, like all hornfaces, had ball joints connecting their massive heads to their bodies. Using the long spikes like the prongs on a captain’s wheel aboard a ship, Cadool steered the mighty beast.

The spikefrill moved, Cadool and his mount acting as one, sailing through the sea of Quintaglios, riding high and fast and firm through the rippling waves of the landquake—

“Out of my way!” shouted Cadool above the screams of the crowd, but most Quintaglios and animals were too deep in panic to heed his words. The spikefrill cruised forward, toward the east side of the square.

Cadool glanced back. In the distance, fools were trying to exit through the Arch of the First Emperor. He watched as the arch’s keystone rattled its way up and out, and then came crashing down. The rest of the arch stood as if suspended for half a beat, and then the huge cut stones fell. Splats replaced screams in mid-note. Dust rose in a great gray cloud.

His mount sailed on, Cadool’s hands firm on the animal’s spikes. Standing upright atop the beast’s massive shoulders, he could see clear across the square. But where was the face he sought? Where?

Three Quintaglios were in the way, apparently dazed. Cadool dug the single claws on the back of each of his feet into the spikefrill’s hide, driving it on. Two of the Quintaglios managed to stagger out of the way; the spikefrill, in a surprisingly gentle gesture, nudged the third out of its path with a sideways motion of its pointed beak.