Lucifer's Lottery - Edward Lee [111]
Several flaming arrows zinged by. Below, the Balloon Skiffs had ascended several hundred feet already, and the Gryphon formation . . .
More arrows began to sail toward the monster.
Krilid ducked just in time to miss being hit in the head. His guts sunk when he noticed Conscripts riding the first waves of Gryphons, bearing buckets of pitch. The second wave was manned by Flamma-Troopers. These horned, armless Terrademons were Hexegenically bred to vomit fire . . .
The Conscripts will paste the Demonculus with pitch, and then the Flamma-Troopers will set it on fire . . .
Along with me.
Then—
ZZZZZZip!
—another arrow sailed by, this one nicking Krilid’s ear. Off balance he flinched, tried to stabilize his footing, but then tripped on a stray bone jutting up from the dead meat and filth that composed the Demonculus’s shoulder—
Oh my God, I’m gonna—
Krilid fell.
He fell fast. He didn’t scream, and he barely panicked. What he did mostly was frown at his clumsiness as he tumbled head over heels toward the hellish field below.
All that work, all that risk, all that planning . . . all for nothing . . .
Fifty feet. A hundred. He caught glimpses of the Demonculus’s nightmarish body as he continued to fall, picking up speed.
A hundred and fifty feet.
Two hundred.
What a way to go, Krilid thought, spinning.
WHAP!
With an unexpected jolt, Krilid landed in muck. The ground? But, no, he couldn’t have fallen that fast, could he? And if he’d hit the ground and somehow lived, Conscripts and Ushers would be dicing him to pieces. When his dizziness passed, he realized that he felt encased in more of the stinking muck.
Then he felt himself elevating, and whatever steam shovel–like thing it was that encased him . . . opened.
Hot wind blew into his face; Krilid was looking at the scarlet sky.
“Krilid, are you all right?” a voice seemed to crunch and echo at the same time. Not a human voice at all, yet there was something . . . familiar about its pitch.
Krilid realized then that he was standing in the opened palm of the Demonculus’s left hand, a fifty-foot-long hand.
“Gerold!” he shrieked when he got the gist.
The immense hand lifted Krilid until he was face level with the Demonculus.
“Thought I lost you there,” the monster’s voice crumbled out from impossible lips.
“Thanks for catching me,” Krilid said, but then a surge in his heart reminded him that they still weren’t out of the woods. “Gerold, listen, we’re under attack right now—”
“Under attack by who?”
Krilid pointed like a shot. “Those Gryphon formations—”
The corroded, grotesque-beyond-words face seemed to smirk. “I’m real scared, see?” And then like a crane, the abomination’s 200-foot-long arm swept out in an arch and swatted all of the winged things out of the sky. Several of the Flamma-Troopers exploded, which ignited sundry pitch upended from a dozen buckets. Fire rained down on the heavily populated field.
“Great move!” Krilid yelled. He pointed down. “Now step on all those guys down there sticking swords in your feet.”
“Oh—” The Demonculus looked down at the field. “I thought I felt some itching.” And then—
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The entire District shook while Gerold stomped his feet on the droves of demonic soldiers below; in fact, several buildings actually collapsed. Screams rose upward like steam from boiling pots.
“And see those Balloon Skiffs?” Krilid asked. “They’re serious business so do us both a favor and make ’em go away.”
The Demonculus’s chest expanded as it inhaled an inconceivably large breath, then exhaled it downward at storm-force velocity. The Balloon Skiffs twirled end over end in midair, ejected demonic crew members, then slammed into the ground to explode.
“So much for them,” Gerold’s new voice remarked.
“And it couldn’t hurt to step on those Electrocity Generators while you’re at it,” Krilid added. “They’re real expensive and took eons to build. Lucifer’ll dump in his pants if you trashed those things.”
The Demonculus shrugged, and it was more than likely the most massive shrug ever made by anything. Horrendous, tractor-trailer-size