The Duelist 5 by Éric Vall

Author:Éric Vall [Vall, Éric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Goodreads: 58263326
Published: 2021-01-01T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

Sentinel Griss was right on the money when he said to expect a fight, and I was glad Horus and I both armed ourselves before the train-beast, a.k.a. Feelee, a.k.a. Steeltrain McCrawlie, broke the cloud barrier.

“Reee--!” A screecher immediately sounded the alarm, but I let loose my first bolt faster than I registered myself actually pulling the trigger, and the screecher’s wail cut out with a gurgle before it dropped like a stone.

I reacted so quickly, even without the assistance of a time-trance, that I suspected even the screechers were stunned because I swore everything paused for a heartbeat before absolute anarchy exploded all around.

“Fire at wiiiiilllll!” Griss bellowed, and all six of us spread out equidistantly around the circular platform and let our projectiles fly. “Whatever you do, keep firing until I say stop!”

One by one, the yellow pterosaur creatures fell from the sky any time they took a dive for one of the train-beast’s antennae. There were so many, and they tried it so often I was worried we would all run out of ammo pretty quick.

However, the screechers soon caught on to the fact a lot of their numbers seemed to be dying when they tried to go for the train-beast, so they started to hold back just as I was nearing a “quarter tank” of bolts in my case, and the Sentinel finally called for a halt on the outright assault.

Soon, we were only taking down the occasional one or two brazen enough to attempt to outwit the six of us, which showed me how dumb they really were. Like big, dumb chickens.

And like chickens, they appeared to have the same length of attention span because they finally lost interest just as the ledge of the entrance came into sight.

“Everyone, back to the bridle!” Sskern yelled, and we all scurried down the train-beast’s snout so we could grip on when the creature latched onto the carpet of thick moss hanging over the lip of the cave Steeltrain McCrawlie was aiming for.

When we made it over the lip, I could see a tunnel lit with oil-burning braziers, high gothic-like arches, and intricate murals carved into the stone walls in bas-relief. And finally, at the end of the tunnel where the train-beast had stopped, was a set of huge double-doors.

“Make way!” Sskern shouted with all his might at the large doors. “Make way for the Royal Sentinel, the Regent, Crown Prince Sskern, and the company with whom he keeps.”

At first, there was nothing but the sound of Sskern’s voice bouncing off the stone walls, but then a low scraping sound could be heard, and the doors started to budge as they slowly opened inward.

When they were opened all the way, we continued through the doors and finally into Upper Terr.

“Woah,” Horus breathed as the train-beast traversed the main thoroughfare in between blocks and blocks of dwellings carved into the rock itself.

Terrans of all shapes and sizes were pouring out of their homes to get a look at the large marching locomotive as it passed by on its way to the large stone palace in the distance.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.