Post date: May 29, 2016 4:29:37 PM
Caradorynee: Feats & Wagers
#9
Lark’s cry of horror was lost in the roar of the crowd surrounding him. His eyes widened and then narrowed on the Human girl who lay prone and dangerously close to the lava pool that circled the lava boil.
Lark’s heart thumped wildly as he began to chant in a desperate plea.
“Get up. Get up, girl. Get up. Get up-get up-get up.”
His chant was in vain. She didn’t move.
A heavy sweat broke out on Lark’s brow. His hands began to shake and his whole body shimmered, becoming semi-translucent in the sunlight.
His eyesight heightened further. He looked for any sign that the girl was still breathing.
His own breath slowed as his stomach began to churn.
He couldn’t tell if she was dead or alive.
Lark’s limbs began to tremble and his heartbeat accelerated.
The girl couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t. If she was he would lose everything.
“Dammit, girl, get up!” Lark shouted. His voice weakened as he began to fade. “On! Your! Feet!”
A sudden movement in his peripheral vision had Lark sucking his breath back in. His Human heart slamming to a stop. The rowdy crowd around him exploded into various fits of glee and excitement.
Lark felt his stomach lurch into his throat as his eyes honed in on a Pouriecolt that was just about to round the corner of the maze. In seconds the fierce beast would be in the direct path of the girl.
Lark scrambled for breath while his head swam.
If the girl wasn’t already dead, she soon would be.
Star knew she had to move. She could feel the searing heat from the pooling lava scalding the skin on the backs of her legs underneath her pants. The thick soles of her hiking boot were thankfully protecting her feet, but for how much longer?
Star tried to roll to her left and cried out in pain. The stabbing pain knifing through her left shoulder had her gasping. She quickly rolled to her right, pulling her shins and feet out of range of the lava pool. She took a deep breath and lay sprawled out on the ground for a moment. She needed to catch her breath, just for a second.
A loud, thundering roar echoed in her ears.
Star assumed it was the massive crowd. For the multitude of creatures up in the stands would surely see her lying in the ash dirt. She wonder how many bonedoons at this very moment were being wagered on whether she would get up or not?
Star’s body was teetering on the not side, but her mind… She was made of stronger stuff than to give up. Not now, not ever.
Putting a shaking hand to her left shoulder Star shifted her weight forward and levelled herself into a seated position.
What she saw over the lava boil had her back-pedalling, scurrying her butt through the ash as fast as she could. The jutting pain in her shoulder and the ash cloud choking her lungs a complete afterthought.
She collided hard up against the ash brick wall of the maze.
The deafening roar of an advancing Pouriecolt sucked out every decimal of sound from the air as well as the air from Star’s lungs.
The beast’s trajectory had her smack dab in the middle of certain death.
Star reached instinctively for her knife. She would not go down without a fight.
The creature roared again, bearing it’s jagged teeth. It reared on it’s hind legs moments before launching itself over the laval boil.
Drawing her legs tight to her chest Star tucked her chin in-between her knees and curled herself into as tight a ball as she could, covering her head with her arms. Her unsheathed knife pointed upward in a defensive move.
The telltale sound of the puff of gas expelling from the centre of the lava boil as the Pouriecolt’s front hooves tread within the two foot radius had given Star the briefest of warning. Star drew in air and held her breath.
The lava boil erupted. Star could feel the force of the lava rushing though the ground beneath her butt. It rumbled and gushed beneath her. And then she felt the heat. The blistering heat.
Star cried out as the back of her hand and knuckles began to burn, the pain agonizing, but she still held desperately onto her knife.
The Pouriecolt bellowed and then went eerily silent.
Star sucked in a fearful breath, waiting uneasily for the creature’s massive weight to come crashing down on top of her. There was nothing she could do. She had nowhere to go and nowhere to hide.
A moment passed, another, and yet another, but still no excruciating pain of the massive beast crushing her to the ground.
Star exhaled and shifted her arms so that she could cautiously sneak a peek toward the lava boil.
There was no sign of the Pouriecolt. Only a faint outline of the beast’s skeleton frame.
Breathing a sigh of relief Star stood. She sheathed her knife and was about to assess the damage to her shoulder when the Pouriecolt’s skeleton head swivelled in her direction.
Star gasped as the beast’s eyes lit up in an almost blinding shade of yellow.
©Human in Inhuman Worlds by Janet Merritt