“Halt!” one of the soldiers shouts. He rests his off-hand on the hilt of the saber at his hip.
His companion stands at the ready, moving so that he doesn't block the light from the street lamp behind them as the two soldiers study the albino girl, who wears a torn dress made of crude fabric. The twigs interlaced in her hair are broken, and her chest heaves from exertion.
“Aren't you the fortune teller and the servant of the lizard man?” the soldier asks, drawing his right foot back to ready himself.
“He's a gecko, dumbass.” The girl wears a smirk on her face.
The soldier on the right draws his sword with his off hand, holding his sword in reverse grip, which means that instead of the sword extending from the top of his fist, as everyone holds a sword, the blade extends from the bottom of his fist, as if he were holding an icepick. Anyone expects a soldier to reach across his waist with his right hand to draw his sword, but drawing the sword with the left hand, which is right near the hilt, is not only quicker, but sneakier, because it is an unexpected move—unless your opponent can see seconds into the future.
Liana knows the soldier is going to draw with his left hand before he does. The girl with the blindingly white skin dotted by decorative scars moves to the soldier's outside. She's not strong enough to keep him from drawing, so she moves with his draw.
The soldier's companion has stepped around, drawing his sword and raising it overhead. I am already airborne, vaulting off of the nearest roof, but I can't reach him until after the soldier has completed his cut. I open my jaws and shoot my tongue out, aiming for his sword hand, but catch it high. As I retract my tongue I am both pulling him toward me and hauling myself toward him, because I am in the air and can't anchor myself.
My snout collides with his sword arm, but I land on his knee with both legs, resulting in a satisfying snap as his knee breaks. He shrieks and I shoot my hand out to clamp his mouth shut, but once again I've forgotten that my arms are too short. A headbutt, the quick blow with my snout, shuts out his lights. I see blood on his face and then realize that its my blood, caused by my head colliding with his sword as I retracted my tongue.
The other soldier is trying to spin to get a swing at the girl, who has circled to his back. The reverse grip move is clever, and works great when you catch an opponent in front of you off guard, but try to fight with a sword in reverse grip, and you're at a disadvantage. The soldier has an uncomfortable look on his face, a strained expression as if he's constipated and struggling, but then he drops to his knees and pitches forward onto his face.
Liana stands behind him, whipping the point of a dagger toward the cobblestones to fling off the blood.
“Where did you get that blade?” I ask her while looking nervously about us. People are out and about on the streets, looking to watch a fight or take part in a mob killing. Furthermore, every soldier in the city must know that the king is dead, and is looking to get one very large, conspicuous gecko.
“I told you I had work to do. You're bleeding.” She grasps my manacled wrist and leads me into the shadows, then onto a side street. “The pool of Shiloam. It's the healing pool.”
As we wind through the alleyways I find myself wishing I had a robe to help conceal me, even though the rational part of my mind knows that a robe is not going to fool even the most inbred resident of the city, disguising the fact that I'm the six-foot reptile who just decapitated the king. Still, that was pretty awesome how I ripped the guy's head right off of him, then tossed him into the pool like a garbage can lid.
Keep your pride in check, Vic. I have to give all the credit to God the Empowerer, because I'm not just a pet store gecko blown up to six feet. I remember being assembled, crafted molecule by molecule in the desert, created by a whirlwind from the dust. So if I was able to take out the king, it's not because I've been working out at the gym.
“We're here,” Liana whispers.
I study the pool, where a collection of invalids and cripples lie on mats. Many of them clearly live here, subsisting on alms until a miracle occurs to heal them.
My snout is trickling blood, and I'm aware that I've left a blood trail all the way here.
The pool is set with stones, because it's a source of water for nearby residents. A lame man stirs on his mat when Liana dives head-first into the pool. Her colorless skin resembles that of a transparent cave fish as she dives down deep. Long moments later she pops up holding mud in her snowy hand. Rising from the pool, she smears and packs the mud, which has the consistency and color of clay, into the cut at the tip of my snout.
“It's you!”
I turn to see the possessed servant of Baal from the temple, the man with the bull's horns and the silver ring in his nose, only now a vivid scar has obliterated the tattoo of a man on a throne with a bull's head. I left him under a pile of burning dram, and he's apparently risen, as witnessed to by the burn scars on his body. I sink into a defensive crouch, when he throws his muscled arms around me and cinches me in a hug.
“You saved me!” he shouts.
It is late at night, so his loud greeting wakens other cripples sleeping by the pool. The whole city is looking for me, and I've got to stay low, so I can't afford to have a very conspicuous bull-man shouting at me in his enthusiasm.
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“It was God the Empowerer who saved you, not me.” I try to briefly return the hug so I can break from him, but he's carried away with emotion.
“What does that mean?” He grips me by the shoulders, or where my shoulders would be if I had them, and looks at my bulbous eyes. “Who is God the Empowerer?”
“We need to get going.” I gesture with my snout toward the city walls. “I've just killed the king and I've got to get out of the city. We'll talk on the way.”
The three of us move out, with Liana leading the way. We wind our way through the narrow streets and alleys, where residential buildings rise up above us on either side, so it is as if we are walking through narrow canyons. Laundry hangs from clotheslines and meat being turned into jerky rests on window sills.
“Baal the Possessor is just that,” I explain in a whisper. “He wants to possess you, control you, take you over. He can't create anything, so he hijacks whatever is alive. God the Empowerer made humans from the dust. He gave us life, and wants to fill us with His power.”
“Why are you leaving the city?” the bull-man asks.
“I just killed the king, and the demon that possessed him inhabited the bronze bull at the temple. It was a hell of a fight, but God the Empowerer struck the demon-possessed bull and destroyed it.” I look at him so he knows I'm sincere. “The whole army is hunting me. I don't think you want to be with me.”
The bull man points to the scar where I've burned off the demonic tattoo from his skull. “For the first time there isn't someone else in my head. I'm free, and I'm ready to fight.”
Liana stops and raises her hand. We are pressed against the wall at the entry to an alley where we can see the small gate. Soldiers are milling around, searching and interrogating everyone who approaches. Anyone wanting to leave the city must cross the Mebed salt flat, which is best done in the relative cool of the night, so there is a line of would-be travelers.
“I can climb the wall, so I don't have to pass through the gate,” I tell the other two, scanning the wall for a route up, one that is deep in shadow and dotted with niches or crevices where I can hide.
“I'm going with you.” Liana gives me a determined look despite her pale eyes.
I shake my head no. “Once I'm on the salt flat they'll see me—that's incredibly dangerous.”
“Any more dangerous than staying in the city?” She looks at me, knowing she's got me.
“Okay.” I let out a sigh. I've carried her on my back once, so I figure I can do it again.
“I'll create a distraction at the gate.” The horned man flexes, and pops his knuckles in a rippling cascade.
“That's not going to end well for you,” I warn him. “I've killed the king and destroyed their idol, so the army is out for blood.”
He shrugs and looks at the gate stoically. “I was dead for a long time, so I don't fear it anymore.”
“I know the feeling.” The more you die, the easier it gets. I'm about to discuss plans when the big man dashes out from the mouth of the alleyway.
With a leap he is on top of a wagon driver, but he kicks the man, causing him to topple forward over the foot board and fall beneath the wagon. He snaps the reins, whipping the horses forward. The passenger beside the bull-man starts to protest, when the muscular man shoots out his fist, connecting with the front passenger's jaw and knocking him off the wagon.
“That's our cue.” I reach for Liana's hand, but my stubby arm comes up short once again. But I'm already running across the street in the direction of the city wall, and I trust that she's sharp enough to follow my lead. I'm upright and the whole time I'm thinking, “Run like a human. Make it look human, Vic.”
The girl is right behind me, and it's hard not to be distracted by the bull-man who has run the wagon over the top of several soldiers, then steered the wagon in a circle and brought it back around for a second pass as soldiers and civilians shout while trying to escape what seems like an out-of-control vehicle.
At the wall the albino girl wraps her arms around my neck and we ascend. The furious rain seems to have spent itself, so now the rain is nothing more than a light sprinkling. I am ascending the wall like a mountain climber, carefully following a studied route that places me in maximum shadow. The girl feels light, thankfully, and I keep my eyes upward, focused on the climb while she is looking down far below us, where the bull-man steers the wagon in a mad course, running over soldiers and travelers alike, and smashing through vendors' stalls at the gates.
When we reach the parapet I am sliding over the top, and ram a soldier who is moving across the walkway to get a better view of the chaos forty feet below us. He pitches over the edge of the wall and pedals with both hands and feet as if he's trying to grab onto to something. Unlike the movies, he doesn't scream all the way down.
“Okay, Liana, I'm going down head first,” I warn her.
I move over to the edge of the wall closest to the salt flat, and she adjusts, so that she is hanging with her body over my snout and her feet pointed toward the ground. I descend the wall, head-first, which is tricky because I have a girl draped over my head, blocking my view, especially when her rough dress covers my eyes. I climb straight down, moving as quickly as possible until her bare feet touch down on the salt flat not far from the soldier I just knocked off the wall and who impacted the ground like overstuffed haggis. I slither over the crusty white soil and stand upright.
We move across the salt flat, not running, because we'll just tire ourselves out, but walking at a brisk pace. The racket behind us echoes over the salt flat, which is entirely bare, so there is nothing to stop the sound. I turn and see the wagon crash into the side gate, but the gate is too narrow, so the impact throws the bull-man forward. He strikes the horse ahead of him and clings to him.
Liana is watching, too, as the muscular man takes the reins to back up the carriage, retreating back inside the gate. Shrieking resumes, as well as the sounds of wagon wheels bouncing over the cobblestones. The sound of the wagon grows fainter, then returns, only this time when the horses squeeze through and the wagon strikes the side of the gate, the sides of the wagon are stripped off with a loud crack and the wagon shoots through the narrow gate.
The wagon races across the salt flat. The scarred man whips the reins, driving the horses forward, until he pulls up beside me and Liana.
“Need a ride?” He is smiling, and I see that for the first time it is a human smile, even if the sight of his large nose ring is disturbing.
Liana and I hop onto the back and cling to the bed as we race across the salt flat. The city is wet, but the white, crusty soil remains dry, and there is no rain at all as we roll across the plain. We are almost at the sand dunes when Liana and I see movement far behind us at the city gates.
The army is after us.