“Private! Where are you going?” The general stepped into Sicarius’s path and held out his cutlass, blade showing, to further block him.
“Wounded man,” Sicarius barked.
“Wounded?” Sespian blurted, voice full of indignation.
“Fire!” the nearby sergeant commanded.
Sicarius glanced back. Two-dozen rifles boomed at once, stinging the air with black powder smoke and pelting the massive hound-shaped creature as it bounded toward them. It didn’t falter one iota under the fire. It leaped into the air, outstretched paws broader than snowshoes, long fangs gleaming in the lantern light.
Knowing it was leaping for him-and Sespian-Sicarius didn’t hesitate. He kicked the cutlass out of the general’s hand. When Heroncrest cursed and grabbed, trying to prevent him from running past, Sicarius lashed out with his boot again, this time hooking it around the general’s leg, banging the heel into the back of his knee. As he was crumpling, Sicarius rammed his shoulder into Heroncrest’s back, shoving him toward the flying construct.
Without waiting to see what happened, Sicarius sprinted around the tent corner, racing past soldiers pounding in the other direction. Despite the chaos, he heard the sound of the creature landing, Science-enhanced claws shredding into clothing and flesh, bearing the general to the ground. A pain-choked cry of, “Get it off, get it off!” arose, only to be cut off by another round of rifles firing.
Hoping the creature was distracted for a few seconds, Sicarius raced toward the edge of the camp, Sespian bumping and cursing on his shoulder.
“Let me-oomph! — down,” he said. “I’m done trying to shoot it, I-argh, watch the branches! — I swear.”
More gunfire erupted behind them. Not far enough behind for Sicarius’s liking, but he thought he had a second to spare to set down Sespian. They’d travel faster on four legs instead of two.
“I’m sorry I didn’t-” Sespian stopped when he was plopped to the ground.
“Later,” Sicarius said. “Go!”
He waved his knife for emphasis, and Sespian sped off in front of him. They sprinted around tents and lorries, dodging men every step of the way. Despite the gunshots and screams of pain echoing through the camp, the soldiers ran toward the chaos. It was a testament to their training, or perhaps an indicator of their ignorance in regard to the mental sciences.
Sicarius let Sespian stay in the lead so he could keep an eye on him, but when Sespian veered to the southeast instead of directly south, a route that would take them to the fort, Sicarius objected.
“You’re off course. Urgot’s straight ahead.”
“I’m going to the cable,” Sespian called over his shoulder without slowing. “We can climb back to the tower that way.”
Sicarius understood Sespian’s vision right away, but was skeptical it was the right choice. “That’ll be a long hard climb with gravity and your body weight slowing you down.” He knew he could make it, but doubted Sespian had endured enough upper-body training to earn the required stamina and strength. “And with the time it takes, the creature will catch up with us-we’ll be stuck on top of the tower with no chance of making it to the fort. Better to sprint across the field.”
“It might catch us then. We’d be helpless out there.” Sespian almost crashed into a pair of men pushing coal-filled wheelbarrows through the snow toward a steam ram. They must be preparing the bigger machinery to fight the construct. Good idea, but it’d be too late to help those the creature was chasing…
Sicarius leaped over the wheelbarrows even as Sespian darted around the soldiers.
“The climb-” he started.
“I can make it, no trouble.” Though he was panting, his cap had fallen off, and blood flowing from a cut near his eye, Sespian threw a grin at Sicarius. “Unless you’re too old to handle it!”
“Old.” Sicarius said in his flattest tone. He wasn’t panting.
“You’re agreeing that you’re old?”
“I’m experienced.”
Shouts and a crash sounded, followed by a shriek of pain. It was the wheelbarrow men being knocked over and injured. Or killed. Sespian knew it too, and the humor vanished from his face. He lengthened his stride and reached the base of the pine tree a blink before Sicarius. He led the climb, scurrying up much faster than he’d climbed down, ducking and weaving around the proliferation of branches radiating from the trunk. Clumps of snow fell in his wake, many landing on Sicarius’s head and shoulders, but he wasn’t about to complain, not with a monster tracking them.
“Sorry,” Sespian whispered down after knocking free a particularly large clump. “I should be more careful. If we’re not rattling the branches, there’s a chance that oversized hound will run past our tree and not realize where we’ve gone for a while.”
“Unlikely.” Listening as he climbed, Sicarius could hear the crunch of heavy paws on snow. Not only had the construct already arrived, but it was circling the pine, walking slowly, considering it.
“You’re not the optimistic sort, are you?” Sespian asked.
Something slammed into the base of the tree. This time more than a couple of clumps of snow detached themselves-a small avalanche dumped to the ground.
“Not when evidence promises there’s no reason to be so,” Sicarius responded.
Sespian’s boots came into view, and he stopped climbing. The trunk had narrowed, the girth of the branches dwindling. They must have reached the harpoon.
“It’s my first soul construct,” Sespian said. “It’s possible I’m underestimating it.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry I shot at it under the tramper. I should have taken your word for it that our weapons wouldn’t work.” As he spoke, Sespian wriggled out onto a branch near the cable. “I’m apologizing a lot tonight, aren’t I?”
“Young people rarely believe or heed the advice of their elders.” Sicarius wondered when he’d grown old enough to be considered someone’s elder. “Should you correct that mentality sooner than your peers, you may live longer than many of them.”
The tree shuddered again.
“I’d settle for living through the night.” Sespian tugged on a pair of mittens. “Can that thing knock over trees?”
“Yes.”
“Of course, it can. We better both go at once then.” Sespian waved to the cable. “Think it’ll hold our combined weight?”
Thick snowflakes still fell in the field, obscuring the view of the water tower and the fort beyond. Sicarius could only see a few meters of the cable, but noted that an inch of snow had come to rest upon it in the time they had been exploring.
“You go first.” Sicarius shook off as much snow as he could, knowing that, across a hundred meters, it’d add weight. The cable remained as taut as when he’d originally tied it, though, and it budged little. “I’ll wait as long as I can before following you.”
“Right.”
Sespian wriggled out farther on the branch until it bowed under his weight, then grabbed the cable with both hands. Though he was aware of shouts coming from all directions as men sought to pinpoint the creature’s location, Sicarius never took his gaze from his son. The cable sloped upward toward the tower on the hill. He feared Sespian was underestimating the effort the climb would take and didn’t know if it’d be better to be right beside him, to catch him if his grip gave out, or to wait in the tree, ensuring the harpoon didn’t slip out of the trunk.
Chewing sounds arose from below. The soul construct had remembered how it’d felled the last tree. Sicarius might not have time to wait.
“Go now, if you’re going to do it,” he said.
“Right,” Sespian said again and took a deep breath.
The shadows masked his face, but Sicarius sensed the concern there as Sespian gazed at the cable angling upward into the snowy night. Hands gripping it, he rotated onto his back and swung his legs up to hook over it as well. The harpoon creaked where it stuck out of the trunk.