Hunters Run Page 0,95

understand flow," Ramon said, in a strangely conversational tone, as if they were having a beer together in a bar somewhere. "You don't understand what it is to be part of something bigger. And, Ramon, you poor bastard, you aren't ever going to know, either." Then he butted his head into the bridge of his twin's nose. He could feel the bone give way, and the man yelped and pulled back. Ramon stuck with him, and they rolled. The little lean-to dug into Ramon's back and then gave way with a snap. They turned once, both trying to regain their feet; the man refusing to release the knife, Ramon refusing to release his twin. Together, they fell in the water.

Ramon gasped despite himself and earned a throatful of river water. The other thrashed and twisted, and then they were apart, floating. Floating in a bright, flowing river. Ramon noticed the red bloom that came from his side, his blood mixing with the water, becoming a part of it. He was becoming the river.

It would have been easy to let it happen. The living sea called to him, and part of him wanted very much to join it, to become the river completely. But the part of him that was alien remembered the threatened sorrow of gaesu and the human part of him refused to be beaten, and together the two parts of himself forced him on. He shifted, and kicked against the flow with all his strength, the heat and blood pouring out of him.

In the raging flow of the river, the one who lived would be the one who found the raft first. He kicked, spiraling in the flow. The water around him was like a veil of pink. His blood. The thought flickered through his mind - How bad did he get me? - and was gone. There wasn't time.

He found the raft, a darkness on the water, and swam toward it. In the corner of his eye, he saw the other man flailing. A thick length of vine had come loose from the raft and was snaking its way across the surface. Ramon gritted his teeth and pushed. Now. He could make it there now.

He shot up from the water, his arms slamming down on the top of the raft. The other man was to his left, also crawling up, his breath a plume of water and spit. A branch caught on something; Ramon thought it was his robe until he remembered that the cloth was all wrapped around his arm. The wood had caught a flap of his own torn skin. The other man was almost on the raft. Ramon pulled his leg up, his ankle on the top, and pulled, desperately hauling himself up. The loose vine slid past his back, bumping him like a water snake. The rain felt like a thousand tiny blows. And he was up. He was on the raft again. He rolled over, and the man dropped a foot heavily onto Ramon's chest, pinning him.

His twin was breathing like he'd just run a four-minute mile; his hair clung to his scalp like lichen on a stone, and his mouth was a pale grin surrounded by blood from his broken nose. Teeth like yellowed bone. Ramon tried to catch his breath, but the pressure from the man's foot prevented him. He felt the grin on his own face.

"You got something to say before you die, monster?" his twin demanded.

"Sure," Ramon said, then fought to inhale. "You know what? Ramon?"

"What?"

Ramon wheezed out a laugh.

"You don't like yourself very much."

Time took the strangely powerless and dreamlike slowness that accompanies moments of horror and trauma. Ramon took pleasure in tracking the reactions as they made their way across the man's face; surprise followed by confusion, confusion by embarrassment, embarrassment by a rage that towered over Ramon like summer thunderheads dwarfed the mountains, and all of it in less than two beats of his racing heart. The blade drew back, prepared for the strike that would open Ramon's throat. As he raised his arms against it, Ramon thought of the marks on bones and skin that came from dying men's attempts to fend off steel with flesh; this was how those marks were made and there was nothing more he could do now than show whatever imagined coroner ever looked over his mortal remains that he'd put up Hell's own fight.

Ramon was screaming, pure animal rage drowning out fear and the hopelessness of his effort,