Silverhair by Stephen Baxter

Author:Stephen Baxter [Baxter, Stephen]
Format: epub
Tags: sf
ISBN: 0061051322
Published: 1998-12-31T21:00:00+00:00

There was a crack, like thunder.

All three mammoths raised their trunks and trumpeted.

Eggtusk twisted his head and stared at his shoulder. "By Kilukpuk's oozing scabs..." Blood seeped out of a small puncture in his hide, and spread over his wiry hair.

But Silverhair scarcely noticed. For, standing only a few strides downwind of them, were two of the Lost: Skin-of-Ice and Gull-Caw. They were both holding thunder-sticks.

And they smelled of mammoth: for they had smeared themselves in mammoth dung, the rich, dark stuff clinging to their loose outer skin and their bare faces. That was how they had crept up unnoticed.

Even at this moment of peril Silverhair felt chilled at the cunning of the Lost.

Eggtusk reared on his hind legs, raised his trunk, and trumpeted. "So you'd punch a hole in me, eh?" he roared. "By Kilukpuk's quivering dugs, we'll see about that." The great Bull's forefeet crashed back to the earth, and the ground shook as he lowered his head and charged.

The thunder-sticks wavered. Faced by a trumpeting, hurtling mountain of muscle, flesh, and tusks, the two Lost ran, scampering across the flower-strewn plain like two Arctic hares.

Suddenly, to Silverhair, they did not seem a threat at all. But, she reminded herself, they still carried their thunder-sticks.

With Snagtooth, she ran after Eggtusk.

Skin-of-Ice fell, heavily, and cried out. When he got to his feet again he was clutching his foreleg.

Gull-Caw came back to him. The two Lost stood side by side and raised their sticks.

More thunder-cracks.

Silverhair felt something fly past her ear, a hot scorch. And another crack, and another: a series of rippling explosions like the splintering of a falling tree, sharp sounds that rolled away across the plain.

Eggtusk grunted and staggered. Silverhair saw a new splash of blood on his fleshy thigh. "Get behind me," Eggtusk ordered.

"But--"

"Do as he says," snapped Snagtooth. Her eyes were wide, her smashed tusk dribbling fresh pulp.

Silverhair tucked herself, with Snagtooth, behind Eggtusk's mighty buttocks.

And now Eggtusk began to walk toward the Lost, his pace measured and deliberate. "So you think you can kill me, do you, little maggots? We'll see about that. Do you know what I'm going to do with you? I'm going to pick you up with my trunk and drown you in the pus that oozes from Kilukpuk's suppurating mouth-ulcers. And then--"

But still the thunder-sticks barked, and the strange, invisible, deadly insects slammed into Eggtusk's giant body. One of them tore away a piece of his shoulder, and Silverhair's face was splashed by a horrific spray of hair, skin, and pulped flesh.

With each impact Eggtusk staggered. But he did not fall, and he kept the Lost washed in a stream of obscene threats.

Gull-Caw was agitated. The fat one's thunder-stick no longer barked; he scrabbled at it, frightened, frustrated.

When Skin-of-Ice saw this, he turned and ran.

Gull-Caw roared out his anger at this betrayal. Then, seeing Eggtusk remorselessly approaching, he yowled like a fox cub.

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