The Island by Tim Lebbon

Author:Tim Lebbon
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2009-05-09T06:00:00+00:00

KEL WAS STARING down at his feet. His left boot had found space between the head of one body and the knee of another, but there was nowhere for his right foot to go, so he placed it on a chest, closed his eyes, and relaxed his weight from the boat. The corpse exuded a bubbling belch, and Kel breathed out slowly through his mouth to try to avoid the stench.

They’re not people, he thought, seeing the hollow where a woman’s eye had been picked out by something from the sea.

He heard the scrape of metal on stone. He frowned and looked to his waist and arms, trying to make out where his weapons were touching rock. He did not move, and the sound came again.

The light around his feet changed, and Kel turned and looked up. Something had moved into the mouth of the tunnel, fifteen steps away across the mass of bodies. It was shaped like a person, but there was little human about its movements, its sharp silhouette, or the way its knees and elbows flexed as it crouched into a fighting stance.

What in the Black… ?

It was a metal man, its outer shell a dull, dirty gray, movements as fluid and unnatural as those of the machines the Komadians had brought ashore. As it came for him, the only sounds it made were the soft squelch of footsteps on dead bodies, and an occasional scrape as spikes on its metal shell touched rock and drew showers of sparks.

“Kel?”

“Stay back.” Kel drew his sword. There was no doubt in his mind whence this thing came, and no hesitation in drawing the weapon. He recognized the way it was coming at him, and it was not to hug and offer a friendly greeting. So where’s its controller? he had time to think, then the metal man drew a short, stubby tube from a cavity in its leg.

Kel drifted to one side, stepping lightly, ignoring what was beneath his feet. Something gave beneath his left foot and he shifted right, countering before he fell.

A sound thumped at his ears, a terrible blast that left him deafened for a beat, the sounds of the sea and Namior’s scream drifting back in from a vast distance. He felt shards of rock speckling his head and right shoulder.

The metal man was five steps away, holding out the short tube. Steam rose from it in a small spiral. The thing’s face was a confluence of curved metal plates, small deep holes where its eyes should have been, and for an instant Kel was sure he saw an expression of confusion flit across its solid features.

Kel plucked a throwing knife from his belt and launched it at his metal attacker. It glanced from its face, scoring a deep scratch, and as the thing’s head flipped back Kel ran, driving forward with his sword and searching for a weak spot. He could see none.

The thing deflected the sword with its arm, bringing the other hand around in a wide, high punch.

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