Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,286

back to bring it down upon the head of a smaller woodcutter who was crumpled on the ground with his crushed hands splayed uselessly atop a skull that had gone all misshapen; his head had cracked open and the aura was pouring out of it, reverting to chaos. To strike again seemed unnecessary but Bluff was doing so, his rod dripping with blood and fizzing with aura. Another woodcutter came at Bluff from behind, raising an axe above his head to strike. In his rage he seemed not to notice Adam, who merely extended his axe handle and laid it across that of the attacker, stopping his strike before there was much force in it. Frozen in position with both hands above his head, this man was assailed by Edger, who seemed to punch him in the stomach. But blood spurted out where the punch landed, and when she drew back her hand Adam saw that it was gripping a long knife, as sharp as only Edger could make it.

Adam was nearly as transfixed by this as the man she had stabbed, until another member of the crew called Adam’s name.

Following his gaze Adam turned to see a foe rushing at him from behind. Without any thought he extended the axe handle to push this fellow back. It caught him a glancing blow to the face that was enough to spoil his balance. As that man fell, Bluff’s rod came down on his head.

Those moments were the crisis of the fight. It then declined into a series of sporadic brawls as they made their way back toward the river. Feller was keen on getting back to the boat, and would have run straight to it, but the projectiles still hurtling their way from all directions obliged them to retreat in a more deliberate style, walking backward much of the way, alert to the hum of the slings that their foes used to hurl rocks.

As they drew closer to the bank of the river and the cries of their attackers diminished, they became conscious of a distant, repetitive sound, growing more distinct: the thunk, thunk of an axe biting deep into wood. It was a sound that filled their days and to which they were well accustomed. But this had a hollow booming character to it, different from the sound of a tree being felled. When they came in view of the riverbank, they understood why: Thunk had got there well ahead of them and flipped Feller’s boat upside down to expose its belly. He was standing on its hull swinging his sharp axe down into its keel. A distant splintering noise told them that he had broken all the way through it. As Feller sprinted toward him howling like a wild beast, Thunk watched him and coolly struck a few more blows through its thinner hull planking before stepping back and dropping into the river. A few steps took him out into the current, which bore him away. Feller, mounting to the top of his ruined boat, hefted his rod as if making ready to hurl it at Thunk; but then he thought better of doing so.

They turned the ruined boat back over to find that Thunk’s crew had pilfered their axes and other goods. They did not even have enough rope to lash the available logs together into a raft that could bear them downstream, and so instead they walked back to Eltown: a journey that would have taken them but an hour rowing downstream but that on foot consumed the remainder of the day. Of Thunk and his crew they saw no more, though at first every shifting tree branch or scurrying beast caused them to twitch about and unlimber their iron rods.

As the day drew on, however, and weariness and cold and hunger overtook them, they all became less concerned about Thunk and more about getting back to the fires of Eltown. The bank of the river seemed endless. In the early part of the day they were traversing country that had been logged but recently. The undergrowth was scant and the going easy enough. But as they advanced into parts that had been denuded of trees longer, they encountered dense thickets of wild brambles, made of thorny shafts that were stiff enough to impede their movement and yet flexible enough that when struck by their iron rods they seemed to dodge the blow and then spring back in counterattack. Steep sections of bank obliged them to