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61 - Really, Really Sorry

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Suni

“Man the ballistae!” someone shouted.

“Bloody run!” someone else shouted.

I decided on the latter option, particularly considering the komodo was staring right at me.

The fall had knocked the wind from me and no doubt I’d be covered head to toe in bruises. I’d count myself favored by the ancestors if nothing was broken. My arms and fingers were a mess of torn skin, splinters, and oozing blood. Something was burning in my leg, and there was a hitch to my step as I scrambled up and ran. But still I ran, limped, did whatever I could to escape the komodo.

Someone shouted my name and I saw Senesio, bound at the wrists, but jumping up and down to get my attention.

“Get the others!” I shouted at him, then drew the dagger from my belt and tossed it his way.

“The Needlethroat!” was his only reply, but getting that far was about the last thing on my mind. There was a giant blasted komodo on my tail, with the smell of my blood in its nose.

I turned away from Senesio and the others, leading the beast in the opposite direction. It came after me with all the force of a typhoon. The ground shook with its weight, my ears rang with its roar, and the world shrunk around me. It dwindled until my only thoughts were what was ahead and what was behind. Keep moving forward, or I’d never move again.

I weaved through a maze of tents, side-stepping entangling ropes, throwing my weight around sharp turns, then leaping over a stack of lumber.

Behind me, tents were trampled, smashed, ripped from the ground as the komodo tore a swath through them. Splintered boards, full boards, and unrecognizable debris rained down all around. Something clipped my shoulder, sent me stumbling. The world toppled forward, tilted, and it took everything I had to keep my feet under me.

The komodo roared as if enraged by the sight. My ears screamed in a high-pitched whine, but I ignored them. A river channel was ahead and a bridge spanning across it. I focused on it and ran all the harder.

With any luck, the river might slow the beast down. My boots thunked on the bridge and I had just reached the far side of the channel when the komodo’s first step crushed the bridge. In the corner of my eye I saw the beast stumble, sinking chest deep into the river. Its great tail went to work, though, and propelled it forward. Combined with the length of its stride, it crossed the river in three heartbeats.

The buildings at the center of the camp were off to my right now and I turned toward them, praying for some sort of shelter.

I ducked into the doorway of the first building. Looked like it was meant to be a barracks when finished. Cots lined the walls on all sides and the beginnings of a small kitchen were visible at the back. Above, a staircase led to the unfinished second floor.

I ran toward the kitchen, grabbed a beam and used my momentum to swing around toward the far corner. My muddy boots slipped on the floorboards and I went down hard on my hip. The jolt set my vision to shaking as I crashed into the legs of several chairs and a table. Without conscious thought I scrambled under them. And then the building exploded.

The entire front wall and part of the roof came rushing in, an avalanche of shattered wood and palm thatch driven before the force of the komodo. The beast was just beneath it, plowing through the weight like it was nothing.

It slowed, and the wood and thatch and ancestors knew what else slid off of it, clattered to the floor, and kicked up a cloud of dust so thick I’d sucked a lungful of it down before I was able to cover my mouth.

It tickled my throat and my chest heaved, holding back a cough. And holding in my breath, lungs begging to suck down more air, but unable to, lest the komodo hear. I fought the pain, forced air through my nose, slow and silent as I could.

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Daylight filled the space as the komodo paused a moment to look around. Did most of the looking with its tongue, though. The thing flicked in and out, this way and that, and wherever it went, that monstrous head followed. Somehow, beneath the rubble, it found my muddy bootprints. Growled at them, then followed their path.

Which led right to me.

Oh hell.

I had to move, and quick. The forest of chair legs between me and the komodo obscured the view, and the big lizard couldn’t get its head low enough to the floor to see under the table anyway. But it didn’t need to see me. It smelled me.

There was some sort of storeroom off to the side, across two paces of open floor. It was dug into the ground, four or five steps leading down into it. Through shelves of salted meat and barrels of grain I could just see a window at ground level. Small enough to let light in and, maybe, for me to fit through.

The komodo’s nose hit the table and it and the chairs screeched as they were pushed across the floor.

I scrambled to stay under them, knees banging and hands clawing. My feet slipped out of cover and the komodo made a bite at my leg. Teeth as long as daggers tore into the floorboards, but I pulled away before they could fully close.

The komodo reared back, mouth open and ready to strike again. I was on my feet now; tossed a chair at the thing. It hit it in the teeth, shattered, and I took one big step and dived into the storeroom.

The floor was dirt and I slid along it, banging into a shelf. It rocked above me, then tilted forward and collapsed, spilling dried meats onto the steps and into the doorway.

“With compliments from the Bospurian quartermaster,” I shouted, then pulled out from beneath the shelf. There was a great sucking as the komodo inhaled, taking in the smell of the meats. Its tongue flicked across a leg of goat and the beast hissed and slapped it aside.

Too salty? Maybe you’d prefer a different cut?

I didn’t hang around to find out. Sprinted to the ground level window. It was shuttered with a few wood slats and I pushed it open, then squirmed through. The whole of the building shifted behind me, but I was already out into the open air. Daylight streamed down from above and a warm breeze caressed my cheek.

I was in an alley between the cluster of buildings at the center of camp and I recognized the building in front of me. Recognized its broken window.

It was Kamil’s quarters.

Traitorous wretch. And then, an idea hit. A reckless idea, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. It wouldn’t hurt to have evidence of his betrayal.

The barracks behind me shuddered as the komodo stirred inside. Then all at once, the building collapsed in on itself. Another massive dust cloud swept out across the camp, drowning everything in half-light and shadows.

Rubble shifted and groaned and, for half a heartbeat, I hoped the beast was trapped. Wishful thinking.

The rubble rose, slipped to the side, and revealed the dust-caked komodo. That was all the encouragement I needed.

I sprinted into Kamil’s quarters, eyes snapping frantically around the room. It was a mess, hadn’t yet been cleaned up from the fight that’d taken place. But the report was still on Kamil’s desk. Laying open right to the page I’d left it.

Outside, shifting shadows and beams of sunlight alternated through the dust cloud. Until a hulking shadow rose up and blocked it all out.

I snapped the report closed, tucked under my arm, and sprinted out the front door. I peeled to one side, away from the komodo, who seemed to have lost me in the dust cloud.

Choking on the dust myself, I sprinted away. A fence appeared in front of me. I slammed into it, flipped over and flopped to the ground. The dust in front of me began to part and for one fleeting moment, I saw a skyship. The Drossomer. It was moored just ahead. Crew were scrambling on deck, looked to be readying it for takeoff.

I was on my feet and running again without wasting another second. A roar broke out from behind and I didn’t need to look to know the komodo was following.

I stumbled through a rack of tools, pushed someone out of the way, then bounded up the gangplank of the Drossomer.

“What’re you—” one of the crew began, but I tackled him.

“Sorry!” I said, then rubbed my bleeding arm all over the man’s shirt. “Really, really sorry!”

The man pushed me off with a shout and I rolled to my feet, then kept going. Another crewman appeared from below decks and I slapped him in the chest, leaving a big, bloody handprint.

Next, I pulled at my own coat, slipping it off of my shoulder. I wiped my arms, my hands, with it, then tossed the thing down the Drossomer’s stairs to the lower decks.

The komodo emerged from the dust cloud just as I jumped off the far side of the ship. I landed hard, tumbled forward, and dropped the report. I dived for it, landing on the pages, then pulling them to my chest as I crawled back up against the Drossomer’s hull.

I tucked in close and focused on steadying my shaking breathing. Behind me, the skyship groaned as the komodo arrived.

I closed my eyes and tried to ignore the flashbacks to the last time I’d cowered against a hull with the komodo just above.