[Quantum Gravity 01] - Keeping It Real by Robson Justina

Author:Robson, Justina [Robson, Justina]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-03-23T22:57:59+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Lila woke into full power two and a half hours after she had gone to sleep. Before she was aware of

what she was doing she was padding quickly along the tunnel, a gun in each hand, her Al-self in control.

After being still for so long she felt twinges and aches now, but she ignored them. Beyond the door she

could hear sounds of terrible fighting from further down the hillside. She heard elven voices shout-ing, and they sounded desperate. For a moment her hand lingered on the door.

The clash of metal on metal and the grunt of hard effort and pain, the whining buzz of magics and a

horrible background noise she couldn't identify reached her senses as she flung the bolts back and looked out. Flickering faint light danced a few metres below the treeline. The awful noise was like distressed metal screaming but she felt its timbre in her bones, what was left of them, and knew it for some kind of fell creature she didn't want to see. A scream sliced the night in two and fell silent in its course, harmonics enough to damage ordinary human hearing. One elf at least was dead.

Lila used sensors on her hand to sweep-clear the area around the door before stepping out and closing it behind her, in case there were any of the Night Prowlers still around. She didn't consider waking Dar.

Better he stayed where he was less likely to pull attention from the Saaqaa. Instead, she ran quietly

downhill towards the fighting, con-cealing herself carefully with camouflage and stealthy moves until she

was almost on top of the scene. Her effort was wasted, since nothing there was looking out for her.

She saw an elf body on the ground ten metres away in a dappled pool of faint starlight. Over it the

gigantic form of a black, bipedal animal crouched. It had long arms and savage claws. Lila didn't know

what it was. Like the Saaqaa it was eyeless, its long, narrow head merely jaws with ranks of dagger

teeth and a bony crest running side to side across its skull. A long tail balanced the head's weight and long legs, short at the thigh but lengthy in the shin and the foot, which was perched delicately on the

earth. She was amazed to see that in one hand it held a short, decorated spear and with this it was

fighting another elf, standing.

It was extremely strong. The wooden spear point struck the elf's sword with the force of a wrecking

ball each time the elf blocked an attack and the elf was failing.

Lila saw the fighter's andalune body close and tight, weakening as the black creature came close so that it dealt not only physical punishment but

drained the energy from the Elf at the same time. The andalune body was torn off with every pass of the creature's hand as if it were tissue paper.

The third elf of the party was casting the strange werelight Lila had seen from the doorway of the

shelter. Its peculiar intense green

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