R. Salvatore - Echoes of the Fourth Magic

“What are you-” Del began, but shut up when he saw Billy trembling and readying the M-16.

Ray Corbin carried his rifle casually, barrel down over his right arm. Thompson had first grabbed the weapon back at the raft, but Corbin had witnessed too much to let the unsteady seaman anywhere near it. The two traveled slowly, for though Thompson was excited, Corbin insisted they take things easy.

They moved inland just off the beach, traveling over a line of parched bluffs covered by scraggly brown grass. Corbin’s easy pace subdued Thompson a little, and both walked silently, deep in thought-Corbin worrying about the fate of his family in New England, and Thompson, who had already convinced himself that he had saved the Unicorn single-handedly, fantasizing about the presentation of his medal.

As they approached a high bluff, the sound of voices abruptly ended their daydreams. The two looked at each other, and Thompson was about to blurt something out when Corbin slapped his hand over the seaman’s mouth. He motioned for Thompson to follow and began crawling up the side of the hillock. As they neared the top, the croaking voices became clearer; guttural, sounding somehow not human, but speaking in a broken form of English. After a long moment, Corbin mustered his courage, squirmed to the top, and looked down on the speakers; then, so entranced was he by their appearance, that he didn’t even notice Thompson crawling up behind him.

Hideous they were, mutated as if nature herself had rebelled against their very existence. Nine of them stood naked except for scant lizard-skin loincloths tied about their waists and sheathed swords strapped to their sides. They were shorter than men, but stocky, their sinewy trunks supported by bow-legged, powerful legs, and pallid green skin blotched by uneven clumps of knotted, filthy hair, hung about them in loose flaps. Their faces were worse yet; lipless mouths stretched thin, straining to cover cruelly pointed, yellow-stained teeth; twisted, boil-infected noses; and evil eyes, bulbous and yellow, like barren desert cracked by rivers of blood. Twisted arms hung crookedly at their sides, nearly reaching the ground.

Thompson’s face went white at the sight and, much to Corbin’s dismay, he let out a bloodcurdling scream. Instantly, the creatures wheeled and drew their wicked swords. Corbin put his head in his hands.

“Well, Thompson, I guess it’s time we met our new neighbors,” he said with as much calm as he could muster.

Furious at the intrusion, the creatures charged the bluff. Corbin reacted quickly, springing to his feet, pointing his rifle into the air and firing a thunderous volley that froze the creatures in surprise.

The tension held for a long moment, but then the largest member of the group, a wide-shouldered brute, stepped through the line of its terrified comrades.

It eyed Corbin with cool contempt, its grimace showing that it was not shaken, even by the gunshots. Corbin returned the stare, but felt the sweat beading on his temples. Thompson stayed huddled in the grass, not daring to move.

“Friends?” Corbin asked weakly. Then in a lower voice so that only Thompson could hear, he added, “I don’t think they’ve seen you. Stay low and get back to the raft to warn the others.”

But Thompson didn’t move.

“Go!” Corbin said as loudly as he dared, and he kicked Thompson in the ribs. Still quivering, Thompson inched down the hill.

“Gunfire?” Mitchell gawked.

“Probably DelGiudice and that other moron playing games,” Reinheiser snapped, rising from the stagnant pool he had been examining. “Just the sort of thing that appeals to juveniles.”

“Del wouldn’t do that,” Brady came back angrily. “He doesn’t fool around with guns. Besides, those shots came from the south.”

Mitchell agreed. “Get everything together,” he instructed. “We’re heading back.”

“Miles!” Reinheiser protested. “And still we have found nothing fit to drink.” He threw a clump of weeds back into the fetid pool. “We need water, Captain!”

Mitchell’s hesitation further showed Brady the growing relationship between the captain and Reinheiser. Lately it seemed to Brady as if Reinheiser’s recommendations had taken on the tone of command.

“All right,” Mitchell conceded. “We’ll go a little farther. But keep your ears open!”

Brady just smiled away his distaste.

Corbin stood eyeing the leader.

The creature growled a command to its troops, a word that Corbin could not understand, and they began slowly approaching, weapons in hand and all too ready.

“Put the swords away!” Corbin warned, and he blasted a second volley into the sand in front of their feet. This put Thompson, now at the bottom of the bluff, into a dead run. Terrified, he sprinted over the dunes, stopping only when he deemed that he was a safe distance away. Looking back from the top of another knoll, he could see the creatures fanning out, encircling Corbin.

The second volley had again scared the creatures, but their leader remained calm and its strength kept the others from panic. Again there came a long, tense pause, and then the leader began an ominous chant, “Men die! Men die! Men die!”

The trap around Corbin was firmly in place, and now the others joined in. “Men die! Men die!” Their frenzy growing with every repetition.

Corbin recognized the suicidal violence gathering like the black clouds of a hurricane about him. “My God, I have to kill,” he told himself aloud, needing to hear the words, needing to openly face the realization. His stomach turned in protest, a scream of disgust rising in the back of his throat.

To murder.

Trembling, his muscles arguing with every move, he raised the rifle to his shoulder. “I don’t want to kill you,” he pleaded.

The leader recognized the human’s weakness. It raised its arm and issued a command and the others halted immediately.

Corbin wondered if, prayed that, his threat had worked.

The leader’s wicked grin dispelled his hopes. It had stopped the others, Corbin realized, desiring in its blood lust to make the kill alone. It puffed out its chest and strode defiantly at its foe, apparently believing that this human would not find the courage to kill.

Yet the beast had miscalculated. As it approached, its twisted smile widening with every step, Corbin sensed a pervading vile aura; indeed, he was nearly overwhelmed by the feeling of absolute evil emanating from the beast. His inner conflicts were suddenly resolved, for he understood at that moment that this was no unfortunate, ignorant creature. This was a monster, a demon come straight from the torments of hell. He tightened the rifle’s butt against his shoulder. “I don’t want to kill you,” he repeated, and truly he didn’t, for it was not his way to pass judgment, even obvious judgment, upon another. The beast never slowed, and Corbin growled, the flavor of righteousness on his tongue, “But I will.” And he squeezed the trigger with passion.

Click.

The gun jammed.

The creature jerked in surprise and sudden horror when Corbin unexpectedly pulled the trigger. But as it tried to regain its courage, it recognized that Corbin had a problem. Unwilling to give the human a chance at another surprise, the monster charged right in and swung mightily with its sword. Corbin deftly blocked the blow with the rifle.

“I don’t want to fight!” he pleaded. But the beast, consumed by rage, was beyond diplomacy, was beyond even hearing the human’s words.

It whaled away wildly at the man, each blow more savage than the previous. Corbin became a release for furies and frustrations too base and vile for him to understand.

In hopeless desperation, he parried a few more attacks. But then, regaining its control just long enough for a slight feint, the creature evaded his defense. It howled with delight as the cruel blade gashed through flesh and muscle and shattered Corbin’s collarbone just to the left of his head. Corbin realized that he was sitting now, dropped straight to the ground by the force of the blow. Only then, as he began to understand the truth of his position, did he feel the searing pain.