The Darkness Before the Dawn - By Ryan Hughes Page 0,29

make sure, he stumbled, went down to his knees, then got up and ran on. He glanced over his left shoulder; sure enough, the b’rohg was going for the easy mark. Now Jedra had to time it just right…

The b’rohg was even faster than he expected. Jedra had to put on a burst of speed to keep the creature aimed in the right direction, and even so it looked like he might not make it. He turned harder to the left, running directly across the b’rohg’s path. If this didn’t work, the b’rohg wouldn’t even have to use its spear; it could just grab Jedra in its massive arms when they collided.

The distance between them closed to twenty feet, then ten. Jedra was about to turn and face the b’rohg in a last desperate stand when the creature shrieked in pain and whirled around as if something had grabbed it by the leg.

Something had. Jedra had led it right over the sand cactus.

The b’rohg tottered on one foot, flailing its arms for balance. Jedra knew it was strong enough to pull free once it regained its footing, and maybe even strong enough to keep chasing him. He couldn’t lose his momentary advantage, so he did the one thing he could think of: He concentrated his psionic power and imagined pushing the creature over.

It hadn’t done much good when he’d fought Sahalik, but now maybe it would be enough. Jedra shoved with all his might, and the b’rohg flailed its arms even more, then finally it shrieked in terror and fell over into the patch of cactus needles.

At least four more penetrated its skin, holding it fast to the ground, and as the giant humanoid screamed and thrashed around it impaled itself again and again until it could barely move.

Then the cactus began sucking it dry.

Kayan came back to stand beside Jedra, and they watched in horrified fascination as the b’rohg’s burnt-orange skin turned pale and its flesh slowly shrank around its bones.

“It’s carnivorous,” Kayan whispered incredulously. “That’s why your blood wouldn’t clot. The cactus drinks blood, so it secretes something to keep it fluid.”

The b’rohg shuddered once more, then lay still. The spear fell from its grasp and thumped to the sand.

Jedra shuddered, too. He was just as responsible for the creature’s horrible death as the cactus was. The fact that it had attacked him didn’t make him feel much better about it. He had used his psionic power to kill another intelligent being. Not a very intelligent one, to be sure, but smart enough to use a spear. The b’rohgs Jedra had seen in Urik had been able to understand a few spoken commands.

Why had it attacked them? he wondered. Probably for their water, given that the b’rohg didn’t have a waterskin of its own. It didn’t have much of anything, just a scaly reptile skin of some sort wrapped around its waist, and the spear.

Hmm. The spear.

“We should try to get that,” Jedra said. Trying to ignore the desiccated corpse, he crab-walked toward the weapon, sweeping the sand in front of him with his robe as he went to detect any more thorns. When he reached the spear he grasped it by the haft just below the stone point and dragged it back out, careful to step in his same tracks.

The spear was nearly ten feet long, and three inches thick. The haft wasn’t solid wood; it was a hollow tube honeycombed with holes. Jedra suspected it was the heartwood of one of the long, skinny kinds of cacti he’d seen farther back where vegetation had been more plentiful. Whatever it was, it was lightweight and strong. The heaviest part of it was the stone point that had been flaked to a sharp edge and bound to the haft with rawhide thongs. The whole thing had a weight and a balance to it that felt right. Though Jedra had no idea how to throw a spear, it felt good in his hand.

“Maybe we should put some distance between us and this place,” Kayan said. “Something else might come to investigate the noise.”

“Good idea,” Jedra said. He wanted to leave anyway. He made a wide detour around the sand cactus and its captive, limping a bit on his not-quite-healed left foot, and led the way toward the west. He winced with each footstep, not just because of the pain, or because of the small but noticeable hole in each sandal, but because he expected to encounter another invisible patch