The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [79]
She was not a fraction of a second too soon, for the creature was now rolling on the earth. Its underbelly was visible, and even as B’Elanna realized how [236] vulnerable it was in this position, her mother ran full tilt toward the creature.
She screamed the entire time, hurling Klingon curses, and used her body weight to push the spear deep into the grikshak’s stomach. The spear went in almost a full meter before it stopped. As B’Elanna got to her feet and ran to assist her mother, Miral turned and gave her daughter a fierce, sharp-toothed smile.
“Q’ap—” she began.
The grikshak’s sweeping forepaw caught Miral squarely across the midsection. Its claws raked deep, and the force of the blow sent Miral flying through the air. B’Elanna heard her crash down several yards away.
Heedless of her own safety, B’Elanna ran toward where her mother had fallen. The grikshak bellowed and shrieked, but Miral’s blow had been a fatal one. It couldn’t rise, and even as B’Elanna went past it at a full run, her feet slipped in the torrent of blood flowing from the wound.
“Mother!” B’Elanna cried. “Mother!”
She almost stepped on the broken, bloody form in the darkness. Torres dropped to her knees. She needed no fire or sun to see the three enormous claw marks—slices, really—that laid open Miral’s torso. They were three centimeters wide and three times as long. Organs were starting to shyly peep through the gaping holes.
“Oh, God,” Torres breathed. She reached and tried to hold the lips of the wounds closed. She was up to her wrists in blood and everything was slippery, so slippery—
Miral hissed as her daughter touched her. “She was avenged,” Miral said.
[237] “Don’t talk,” B’Elanna said. “Maybe I can stitch these up somehow—”
Miral laughed, then winced at the pain. Blood trickled from her mouth. “These are past any doctor’s healing, child. Even your EMH could do nothing now.”
B’Elanna’s vision blurred and she blinked the tears away. “Mother,” she said, brokenly. “You have to try to fight it. Klingons are tough, we—”
“We?” her mother said, interrupting her. “It is good to hear you include yourself, my daughter.” She grimaced, then continued. “A human would be dead. I may indeed last for a time. How long, I do not know. Perhaps hours, perhaps even a day.”
“You’ll be all right,” Torres said, wanting fiercely to believe the lie. “You’ve got a son-in-law to meet, and little Miral ... I want her to know her grandmother.”
“I would ... have liked that, too,” Miral said. It was clearly getting harder for her to speak. “But eventually I will pass. B’Elanna ... I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” Torres sobbed. Her heart was breaking.
“You must perform the Hegh’bat.”
For a moment, Torres couldn’t remember what it was. There were so many Klingon rituals. When it came to her, she shrank back in horror.
“No, Mother! I can’t possibly—”
Miral reached out a hand and gripped B’Elanna’s wrist with more strength than B’Elanna had thought she yet had.
“You will do this for me,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Don’t you see? I was ...” She coughed, and blood spattered B’Elanna. “I was supposed to have [238] died when I had the vision of you on the Barge of the Dead. I was so sick. ... No one expected me to recover. But I did.”
She labored for breath for a moment, her grip never loosening, and continued. “I lived because it was not enough for you to save me in a vision. You must save me in this reality as well. Do this for me. Send me to Sto-Vo-Kor with this loving blow. Give me honor, my daughter. You have already given me pride.”
She smiled, and the sight was both grotesque and beautiful to B’Elanna. “Mother, please ... please fight it.”
“I am, child. I am fighting to live long enough for you to ...”
And then B’Elanna understood. Her mother was clinging to life so that she didn’t die before her daughter gave her honor by killing her. Two thoughts filled her head simultaneously: This is perverse and wrong and she’s not a victim, she’s deciding her own destiny.
“Hurry, ’Lanna,” her mother said. “I can almost see