Chapter 46 A Change of Leadership

The hammerhide crossed the bounty ring without looking at the open gate behind it.

It lowered its head toward the cracked wall.

Lark drew his steel sword.

“Turn it!”

His blade struck along the edge of a black plate.

The plate shifted. Red flashed beneath the throat.

The clubman hit the opposite flank.

The red spread.

Dessa's hand closed around Jin's wrist.

“It's keeping the blows.”

The hammerhide raised its head.

“DOWN!”

The exhalation hit the wall like a battering ram.

Stone burst outward. A section of the spectator steps folded into the gap beyond it.

People fell.

Jin saw Jory's red cloth vanish between two benches.

Dessa was moving before he could shout.

She caught one bench and shoved it aside with her shoulder. Jory came up beneath it, blood on his forehead, one arm around a little girl who'd fallen with him.

Kessa dragged the girl's mother clear.

The hammerhide watched the opening it had made.

Its throat was dark now.

Lark put himself in front of it.

The creature swung a claw at him. He parried at the joint, giving ground instead of striking the shell again.

“Clear the steps!” he shouted.

The clubman dropped his weapon and went to help Jory.

Jin backed along the wall's surviving base. Five firm strides from a low block to the broken corner. He checked the last stone under his foot, recorded the path, then returned to the block.

He needed somewhere to go when that mouth opened.

Above him, the painted team ribbons streamed in the draft from the breach.

A window appeared.

Jin stared.

Then he looked at the creature.

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At the people still climbing out of the broken steps.

At his trousers.

“Oh, you disgusting little career counselor.”

He crouched behind the low block, slit both cuffs with his knife and hauled the trousers off over his trainers.

Cold air met his knees.

A man on the steps pointed.

“Why has he—”

“Keep moving!” Kessa snapped.

She saw Jin.

Her mouth opened.

Jin held up the trousers.

“I have an extremely bad idea.”

“I can see the ducks.”

They were yellow. Repeated. Indecently cheerful.

Lark glanced back, and the hammerhide's next claw almost took his sword hand off.

“Whatever that is, do it faster!”

Jin ran along the creature's side, keeping the layered shell between himself and the mouth.

It turned to follow.

He flung the trousers across its forehead.

One leg slid off.

The other caught beneath a raised ridge.

The hammerhide jerked its head. Jin ducked the sweep, caught both dangling cuffs and pulled them beneath the blunt jaw.

His fingers fumbled the knot.

The creature's claw scraped stone beside his heel.

He hauled the cuffs tight and threw himself away.

The trousers stayed.

They covered one eye and hung on either side of the mouth like an appalling royal wig.

It tried to scrape the cloth away against the wall.

Stone grated over the forehead plates. A red beat showed under its jaw.

Kessa caught Jin's arm before the searching claw could find him.

“Back. You've dressed it. Stop admiring your work.”

Jin stumbled clear with her.

He'd expected the knot to come loose. It held, ugly and crooked, one cuff clamped beneath the jaw.

Jin got to his feet.

“Ladies and gentlemen!”

The hammerhide turned toward his voice.

“My replacement! Our new captain!”

Someone on the steps laughed in a cracked, unbelieving voice.

“Better dressed than the old one!” Jin shouted.

The mouth opened.

He was still too close.

Lark caught his shoulder and dragged him behind a standing stone buttress.

The exhalation tore past them.

Dust struck Jin's bare legs. The trouser legs snapped straight with the flow, pointing toward the empty side of the ring.

Beyond them, Jory lifted the little girl through the breach into her mother's arms.

The fabric sagged.

The throat went dark.

He spent the twenty-five: ten Strength, eight Agility, seven Endurance.

His legs tightened beneath the ridiculous ducks. The stone edge he'd been gripping chipped inside his fist.

Lark looked at his hand.

Then at his face.

“Do you get stronger every time you humiliate yourself?”

Jin opened his mouth.

Closed it.

“That's an upsetting question.”

The hammerhide shook its covered head.

One eye stayed hidden beneath a fold of cloth. It turned that side toward the buttress, searching with the visible eye.

Kessa pointed at the hanging trouser leg.

“It shows where the mouth's aimed.”

Dessa had Jory and the children through the breach. She came back with her cleaver in one hand.

“And when it stops blowing.”

Jin watched the dark throat work.

The beast wasn't running now. It was placing its feet, turning its open eye toward the people still behind the exit rail.

It couldn't see them past the buttress.

It could see Lark.

The mouth closed.

The hammerhide lunged and drove its shell into the stone beside him.

The buttress cracked.

Red lit beneath the jaw.

It had found a blow it could give itself.