Elric in the Dream Realms - Michael Moorcock [22]
Suddenly a flock of creatures ran directly across his path, bursting from the newly made holes in the walls. These were what he had mistaken for tiny men. Now that he saw them more closely he realized they were some kind of rat, but a rat which ran on long hind-legs, its forelegs short and held up high against its chest, its long, grey face full of sharp little teeth, its huge ears making it seem like some flying creature attempting to leave the ground.
There came a great rumbling and cracking. Black smoke blinded Elric and his horse reared. He saw a shape moving out of the broken banks—a massive, flesh-coloured body on a dozen legs, its mandibles clattering as it chased the rats, which were clearly its natural prey. Elric let the horse have its head and looked back to get a clearer view of a creature he had thought existed only in ancient times. He had read of such beasts but had believed them extinct. They were called firebeetles. By some trick of biology the gigantic beetles secreted oily pools in their heavy carapaces. These pools, exposed to the sunlight and the flames already burning on other backs, would catch fire so that sometimes as many as twenty spots on the beetles’ impervious backs would be burning at any one time and would only be extinguished when a beast dug its way deep underground during its breeding season. This was what he had seen in the distance.
The firebeetles were hunting.
They moved with awful speed now. At least a dozen of the gigantic insects were closing in on the road and Elric realized to his horror that he and his horse were about to be trapped in a sweep designed to catch the man-rats. He knew that the firebeetles would not discriminate where flesh was concerned and he could well be eaten by purest accident by a beast which was not known for making prey of men. The horse continued to rear and snort and only put all hoofs on the ground when Elric forced it under his control, drawing Stormbringer and considering how useless even that sorcerous sword would be against the pink-grey carapaces from which flames now leapt and guttered. Stormbringer drew scant energy from natural creatures like these. He could only hope for a lucky blow splitting a back, perhaps, and breaking through the tightening circle before he was completely trapped.
He swung the great black battle-blade down and severed a waving appendage. The beetle hardly noticed and did not pause for a second in its progress. Elric yelled and swung again and fire scattered. Hot oil was flung into the air as he struck the firebeetle’s back and again failed to do it any significant harm. The shrieking of the horse and the wailing of the blade now mingled and Elric found himself yelling as he turned the horse this way and that in search of escape while all around his horse’s feet the man-rats scurried in terror, unable to burrow easily into the hard clay of that much-traveled road. Blood spattered against Elric’s legs and arms, against the linen which clad his horse to below its knees. Little spots of flaming oil flared on cloth and burned holes. The beetles were feasting, moving more slowly as they ate. There was nowhere in the circle a gap large enough for horse and rider to escape.
Elric considered trying to ride the horse over the backs of the great beetles, though it seemed their shells would be too slippery for purchase. There was no other hope. He was about to force the horse forward when he heard a peculiar humming in the air around him, saw the air suddenly fill with flies and knew that these were the scavengers which always followed the firebeetles, feeding off whatever scraps they left and upon the dung they scattered as they traveled. Now they were beginning to settle on