Roland Green - The Wayward Knights

Then the rocks moved again, and this time he knew it was the ground moving under them, not his weight atop them. He leaped back onto solid ground, as another scream tore from the throat of someone dying under the Creation's claws and tentacles.

On the back of his neck, Darin felt a brief puff of hot air.

The Creation had taken three fighters from Torvik's band in its first rush. The rest had given ground, and by Habbakuk's favor there was ground to give. The beach of sand, gravel, and boulders at the end of the lake was wide enough that those to the rear were out of the Creation's reach.

It could not crawl onto the land, either. It weighed as much as a whale, and its lobsterlike legs had not grown in proportion to the rest of it. But it had a whale's shrewdness, too-or perhaps more, the wits of an ape or a water naga.

It swam back and forth along the beach, as far to either side and as close inshore as the depth of the water would allow. There were places where deep water lay close by, and those places the fighters quickly learned to avoid. Twice a tentacle uncoiled from the water, snatched a fighter off his feet, and pulled him screaming down to the waiting claws.

Other times, bold fighters drew close to the water, trying to plant spears or arrows into vital spots. If the Creation had any. Even if it did, the odds against striking one were heavy, as long as it faced its foes.

Torvik saw feather-fringed breathing holes and a softer underbelly to either flank. But those flanks were seldom exposed, and then only to desperate fighters who either shot or threw at random and missed, or waited for an aimed shot and too often died screaming. Sometimes the Creation did not even bother to use its claws, but crushed its victims in pulp with the sheer strength of its tentacles, or flayed them alive with the hooks that sprouted around the suckers on some of its arms.

"Did Wilthur use only lesser krakens and lobsters to make this, or more?" Chuina asked. She had closed with the Creation three times, to shoot two arrows each time. She was still alive, but the Creation was likewise unhurt.

"There is all of nature and none of it in that monster," Torvik said. "But it is flesh and blood, however much Wilthur shaped them with magic. Flesh and blood can die."

Chuina did not say that many men and women might die first. Instead, she ran in for her fourth try at the Creation, going so far that spray rose around her bare feet as she reached the water before shooting.

She struck one of the breathing holes fair and hard, and the Creation shuddered. But she did not slow it, and a lashing tentacle knocked her down. Another wound around her ankle, while one claw reached out-

Torvik ran in, so blind to everything but saving Chuina that he hardly noticed the dozen fighters running with him. He ran far enough into the water to hack at the tentacle holding Chuina's leg and laid open blackish gray flesh.

The Creation shuddered. It still did not find a voice, but Chuina screamed for all, as half a dozen pairs of strong arms snatched her from the loosening grip of the tentacle. She struggled free as her rescuers reached the shore, to stand with one leg of her pants ripped free and ugly, free-bleeding cuts on both her legs and the top of her foot.

"A good thing there are no sharks in the lake," she said, as Torvik stormed out of the water to see how she was.

"No, this madman's Creation is fierce enough by nature, without any scent of blood," Kuyomolan snapped. "We must turn it, so we can take it in the flank."

"It will not turn to take someone from the land," Chuina said. "At least not enough."

"Then perhaps it will turn to follow someone in the water," the Dimernesti said, more quietly than Torvik had ever heard him speak. "I did not come this far to return knowing that the journey was in vain, and that I left companions whom I might have helped."

Kuyomolan ran down the beach, to a point above one of the deep holes. He soared like a bird as he dived, but made less noise than a diving kingfisher as he broke the surface.

"Quickly!" Chuina shouted. "Archers, spearmen! Make ready! He's going to try to turn the beast and give us a flank shot! Hurry!"

Everyone who still had spears or arrows rushed for the beach, briefly careless of the tentacles and claws. Even Chuina took a few halting steps, before the pain in her blood-slimed leg halted her.

Torvik knelt beside her, tearing off his shirt and ripping it into bandages. "Now be easy, until the bleeding stops!" he said, as he wound the bandages around Chuina's leg. "You may dance again, but not if you try to fight again today."

"Oh, and what will you do if I do not obey?" Chuina said. She was doing her best imitation of a silly schoolgirl.

"I shall tell Mother," Torvik replied, doing his best imitation of the schoolgirl's pompous older brother.

It was only when they had finished laughing that they realized that both Kuyomolan and the Creation had vanished. Ripples and eddies told of something large moving below the surface, but where and in what direction, no one could tell.

The archers and spearmen, ready to strike, looked something between angry and bemused. Some of them cast dubious looks at the dark water, knowing too well how suddenly it might erupt in deadly tentacles.

Then the water roiled, foamed, and erupted. A wave as high as a man's waist rolled up onto the beach. A dozen fighters went down, some of them to be swept into the water by the backwash. They thrashed frantically, forgetting weapons, as did those who rushed to help them.

Then everyone leaped or struggled backward, as the Creation rose from the water. In one tentacle it held Kuyomolan, but not fatally tight. He had his spear in both hands, and was jabbing at the convoluted segments of the carapace covering the head, and the fringe of waving antennae all around it.

The tentacle tightened its grip. Torvik saw blood start from the Dimernesti's leg. He also saw Kuyomolan draw back both arms and fling the spear down into the Creation's head with all his remaining strength.

Tentacles lashed in frenzy. Two more wrapped themselves around Kuyomolan, and the cave echoed to his last scream as he was torn literally limb from limb.

But something oozed from the Creation's skull, and its movements seemed less certain. Kuyomolan had hurt it. The archers could hurt it more.

Chuina limped toward the water, unslinging her bow as she ran. Only her brother recognized how much pain she was keeping from showing in her face, as she shouted, "We have it! Finish it now! Shoot, shoot, shoot!"

Then earth and water seemed to speak for the Creation, as rock crumbled, sand and gravel flew, and the waters of the lake tore downward through the blocked passage.

Darin saw workers crushed by rocks, swept away by the rushing water, or dashed to bloody pieces in falls. He saw boulders and rushing water vanish behind a cloud of spray and dust, and waited for something to swallow him or crush him as well.

The gods worked here. Mere flesh-and-blood strength could not serve.

Still, he snatched at limbs when they flailed past, and heaved rocks aside or off the fallen, even if the fallen would never rise again. He stood waist-deep in the torrent like a rock himself, with desperate swimmers clutching at his clothes, and altogether behaved as if he could single-handedly turn aside disaster.

Darin had his reward, when the spray and dust subsided. The lake was draining through a passage in which lower and upper no longer had meaning. A small ship with its mast stepped might have sailed through the gap, although it would have been dashed to pieces on the rocks below.

Of the fighters at his back when the lake declared war, Darin counted all but twenty or so still on their feet. And to either side of the torrent was a broad stretch of tumbled rock, slick and dark with spray, probably none too secure as footing, but with room for the whole band to climb up and join the fight.