Hell or High Water by Unknown

Author:Unknown [Unknown]
Language: por
Format: epub
Published: 2012-10-06T22:06:59+00:00

Chapter Three: Over Their Heads

The undead crocodile lashed out with its tail now, rather than its mangled jaw, and Ameyanda could not entirely avoid the blow. She staggered almost to the edge of the wobbling—and now disintegrating—tussock.

For an instant, she seriously considered drawing a mambele across her own throat. Considered, and dismissed.

If they keep me alive, that’s their mistake.

Still, she’d prefer not to leave herself helpless. Again she cast about, desperate for any advantage…

And saw it, almost buried in the muck and sticks.

The White Leech who’d struck down Seyusth was moving in on her, again with club rather than blade raised. Even through the rain, the sour reek of old sweat, rotting teeth, and poorly tanned hides was worse than the undead.

She let the club come, raising crossed mambeles to parry only at the last instant, allowing the blow to send her sprawling.

Oh, Grandmother Sun, this is going to hurt!

Agony, white hot and piercing, as her hand came down upon the tiny prize she’d noted a moment earlier. It was crippling, nauseating; her whole body spasmed, and she could feel the object shifting inside the flesh of her palm.

But they wouldn’t find it there, and the rain should wash away the worst of the blood before the enemy could grow suspicious.

Racked by pain, Ameyanda didn’t have to fake helplessness as the White Leech swarmed over her, confiscating her weapons and tying her arms with rough hemp before dropping her like a sack of tubers into the massive skiff.

∗∗∗

She didn’t pass out precisely, but the wash of pain, exacerbated by the rough handling, smothered her mind in a thick caul. It was some moments before she once more became aware of her surroundings.

She shivered, and realized that she lay in water two fingers deep—accumulation from the rain. She was lying on the deck of the skiff, which was now surging through the swamp with that unnatural speed she’d noticed earlier.

And now she saw how.

Clamped to the rear corners of the raft with thick iron spikes, a pair of undead torsos worked effortlessly and tirelessly with heavy poles to keep the craft in motion. Someone had taken a few sizable bites of excess flesh out of one of the torso’s shoulders.

Swallowing bile, she scooted to look around. To her right lay one of the men the White Leech had attacked, also bound. Apparently hostilities had resumed after the mutual enemy was down. He sported fresh bite wounds, and was already shivering with fever.

Instinctively, she glanced down at her stomach and legs, searching for similar bites.

“You will not find any,” breathed a weak voice from her left. “The obese one did that to him in battle, not after capture.”

“Seyusth?” She twisted and flopped to face her companion. “Are you—oh, gods and spirits!”

“It appears,” the lizardman said, “that the White Leech has experience countering a shaman’s magics.”

A pair of small logs had been lashed together with leather straps and hemp, forming a rough T.

And to that, Seyusth had been crucified.

A squared metal stake pinned both feet to the heavy branch.

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