“Same reason you’d put yourself between sheep,” Marcus said. “Lets you put your full attention on the one you’re killing. Can we talk about this later?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
Marcus shook his sword, and the beast’s eyes flickered toward it. Its pupils were cat slits, its nose two flat pits like a viper’s. Its chest widened and narrowed as it sucked in air. Smelling them. Gathering information. Making its decision.
Marcus shouted, driving toward the beast with a flurry of stabs. Even in the relative clear, there was little room to swing, and the reach of his blade was the only advantage he had. The beast swiped at the sword, parrying the thrust with a power that almost wrenched the hilt out of his hand. Marcus stepped back, waiting to see if his plan had worked. The beast licked its paw, its tongue the bright red of fresh blood.
“Didn’t know it was sharp along the sides too, did you, kitty?” Marcus said. “I’ve got all kinds of tricks like that. So how about we just call this one a draw and move on, eh?”
The beast screamed, swatting with its wounded paw. Red splattered across Marcus’s bare chest, but it was his attacker’s blood. Its evil-colored eyes flickered past Marcus’s shoulder, weighing the possibility of Kit. Marcus shifted to the side, keeping himself between the animal and the man. The beast hissed annoyance, and for a moment Marcus thought it might turn away, blending back into the shadows of Lyoneia as unnervingly as it had emerged from them. Nothing in its stance warned what was coming; in one heartbeat it went from half turned away, single petulant eye considering him, to full assault. The rush of flesh and bone, tooth and claw, left no room for mercy. Marcus felt the shout in his own throat, but he couldn’t hear it. He pushed forward, into the attack. Retreat even in defense was death now. The shock of impact jarred his arm as the blade struck home, but the animal outweighed him, and no wound however grievous could stop its charge. The smell of the beast filled the air, thick and rank and intimate, and the fur, slick and rough at the same time, pressed against him and bore him down. The filthy litter of the jungle floor pressed against Marcus’s back as the beast shifted, struggling to bring its vicious teeth against his head.
Somewhere very far away, Kit was shouting, but Marcus didn’t have the attention to spare. He pressed himself in, clasping the beast close, fighting to stay too near to let mouth or paw reach him. With the hand that still held the sword, he pushed and pulled and pushed again, widening whatever wound he had managed. The beast writhed against him, thrusting him away, and whipped its head against his own. Marcus felt the tooth pierce the top of his ear and rip through it. Later, it would hurt. A claw dug at him, trying to find the leverage to cut, and Marcus jumped back. The blood-slicked blade slipped from his fingers.
For a moment, they stood, facing each other. The beast curled against itself like a runner protecting a stitch. Marcus stayed low, feet grounded and knees bent, ready to jump away. Blood poured from the animal’s belly. It roared, snapping at the air, but it came no closer. Its eyes fixed on Marcus, then glazed and fixed on him again. Blood poured into Marcus’s ear and down his neck. Long ropes of saliva draped down from the animal’s panting jaw. Flies were already buzzing around them, drawn by the smells of violence and death.
The beast coughed once, and then a sudden gout of blood shot out from its mouth and nostrils, bright red against the black muzzle. It slipped to the ground, folding its legs underneath it as if merely resting, and its dark eyes closed. Marcus took a long, shuddering breath.
“Well,” he gasped. “Hope those don’t travel in packs.”
Kit stood at the far side of the clearing, his walking stick held above him like a club, his face pale and his hair standing out from his head in all directions. Marcus’s legs began to shake, and he sat down. He’d been in the business of violence long enough to know how this would go. A half hour’s time and he’d be fine, but until then trying to will himself to normalcy only made it worse. He touched his wounded ear. The rip was rough at the edges and as long as the first joint of his thumb. He was lucky it hadn’t gotten more than a single tooth to bear, or the beast might have torn the whole damn thing off. The flies buzzed around him, sliding in to drink up the gore.
“Are you all right?” Kit asked.
“Had better days,” Marcus said. “Had worse, for that. If you’ve still got that salve in your pack, I’d take a couple fingers’ worth.”
Kit hurried back into the trees and returned with the pale leather pack, one of the few objects that hadn’t yet rotted in the jungle. Marcus opened the stone jar and scooped a double finger through the yellow-white salve. It burned like fire when it touched the wound, but it would keep the maggots out.
For weeks, they had battled the land, following animal trails that widened for a hundred feet and then vanished as if they’d never been, avoiding Southling hunters who haunted the nights, and spending as much time scraping for food and water as searching for the reliquary. Kit’s face had lost all its cushion, the skin growing gaunt against the bone. Marcus was fairly sure he’d lost a tenth of his own body’s weight, and he still had a bit of potbelly. The indignities of not dying young.
“I believe I’ve heard of these,” Kit said, staring at the animal. “Kaskimar, they’re called where I came from, but … they were much smaller.”
The actor reached out with his walking stick to prod the corpse.
“Don’t touch it,” Marcus said, a breath too late.
The black eyes clicked open and a paw lashed out. The walking stick flew out of Kit’s hand, cracking against a tree trunk. Kit fell back with a curse, and the beast closed its eyes again.
“Sorry,” Marcus said. “Should have said before. Did it get you?”
“I’m afraid so,” Kit said ruefully. “I may need needle and thread.”
“That deep?” Marcus said, levering himself to his feet. “Let me see—”
“No,” Kit said sharply. “Stay back. It isn’t safe. Just throw me the pack and then get away.”
“Get away?”
Kit nodded, licked his lips, and winced. Marcus thought he saw something tiny and black skitter across Kit’s arm, and his flesh crawled a little.
“It’s the spiders,” Kit said. “There’s too many of them to keep track of. It won’t be safe for you.”
Marcus tossed the pack to Kit’s side and made his way to the other side of the dying beast. The shaking was already less. Kit grunted in pain and started pulling their few supplies out and onto the ground before him.
“How bad are the bites from those things?” Marcus asked
“Hmm? Oh. They raise welts. Itch for a few days.”
The beast took a deep, shuddering breath and didn’t draw another. In a few minutes, Marcus guessed, it would be safe to retrieve his sword.
“Hardly seems fair that they bite you,” Marcus said. “Disloyal, somehow.”
“I don’t believe they know who I am. What I am, for that. I doubt they have minds themselves, even so much as a normal spider might. They act as the mark of the goddess’s authority and the channel for her gifts.”
“Which is why we’re killing her,” Marcus said. “So her power and gifts all go boneless.”
“Yes.”
“Still seems rude of them to bite you.”
“Annoying, yes. But that isn’t why they’re unsafe. I’m using the last of the salve.”
“Use it if you need it. Might as well use nothing as not enough. Why unsafe, then?”
Kit took a sharp breath, his hand pressed to the the wound in his leg. His face paled and the red-black blood that ran between his fingers might have been thick with clots or something less pleasant. A yellow frog, long-legged and shining like a river stone, leaped onto the dying beast’s head, then off again. The animal didn’t stir.