Ash and Quill(82)

"I can rest on the ship," she said. "And he's right. We can't leave these automata here for the Library to retrieve. We can use them." She gave him a smile. Forced, but it was a credible effort. "I'm all right. This is easy. I can do this."

She went off to join Thomas where he crouched by one of the turned-off lions, expertly pressing panels to open the skin and expose the interior.

Brendan looked far too fascinated by what Thomas was doing, so Jess turned him to look in the direction of the bloody grass where Khalila's cousin had died. "That's what we're fighting," he said. "They sent him to die just to keep us distracted while they set us up for the kill. This isn't a skirmish. It's the opening battle of the war."

Brendan looked without expression on Rafa's corpse and said, "You didn't count them. You're one beast short."

"What?" Jess asked, an instant before he realized what his brother meant.

The lion that had ambushed Rafa rose out of the grass and lunged.

Jess shoved Brendan one way, and he dived another; it never would have worked had there not been two of them, two nearly identical . . . The lion was confused, conflicted, trying to decide which of the two to kill first. As Brendan sprawled and slid, fighting to get back to his feet in the slick grass, Jess took a page from Glain's book. The lion turned toward his twin, and Jess leaped on its back. 

This is a mistake, he thought instantly, because the sense of power in the thing was eerie and horrifying, and all he could do for the next few seconds was wrap his legs under the belly and his arms around its neck and hold on, hold on for dear life as the lion thrashed, writhed, ran, tried to claw him loose. It ripped its own flexible metal skin in the effort. Jess heard shouting, screaming, heard someone-Santi?-ordering someone else to stop shooting for God's sake, and he heard Glain's deep-throated shout of encouragement as he hung on, tenacious and now desperate to make this hell ride stop at any price. She seemed to think it was fun. It was not fun.

Switch, he told himself, and even though it went against every possible instinct to release his hands from their death grip, he forced himself to do it and nearly got flung off in the next stomach-lifting gyration the lion made. He had to grab hold again, and keep holding, as the automaton suddenly flipped itself end over end through the air in a vicious, athletic circle, landing hard on all four paws and then rolling on its side. It was only the softness of the grass that kept Jess from being crushed and broken. As it was, the pain was lightning hot and too big to think about, and then just as quickly gone as the lion sprang again to its feet.

Now.

He moved his nearly numb fingers, found the switch, and pressed it home just as the lion sprang forward, straight for his twin brother's throat.

"Down!" Jess screamed at him, and Brendan threw himself forward, and flat, which was intelligent, because the lion landed just after him, took a wobbling step forward, and then froze.

Jess felt the cables trembling beneath the lion's metal casing. It felt like fury, like thwarted rage, but he knew he was reading into it; the lion didn't feel. Couldn't. But he still thought he could sense the bloodlust pulsing just under that skin, in the unbeating heart of the thing-and it reflected the bloodlust of the man who'd set these automata after them.

He slipped off and nearly toppled over; his knees barely held, and his balance spun wildly until he felt a firm hand grip his shoulder and hold him steady. He thought it was Thomas, but a glance backward showed him it was Glain, grinning from ear to ear. "Well done, Jess," she said. "What possessed you to do that?"

"You did it!" he half gasped.

"Don't be stupid. I broke horses as a child. How many have you been bucked off of, you blazing fool?"

"None," he admitted.

"Stupid." She tousled his hair, which hardly needed it after all that, and he shook it back out of his eyes. "Brave, but still stupid as a bag of stones." She stepped forward and offered a hand to Brendan, who was still facedown in the grass. "Well? Are you dead?"

"Damn well ought to be," his brother said, and rolled over to look at her. "God, that was close."

"You realized it before I did, or it'd have been a damn sight worse," Jess said. "Get up. You're not broken."

"Only in spirit," Brendan said, and groaned when he clambered up. "Is this what you lot do all the time? Because I'm reconsidering my decisions very quickly."

"Oh, you get used to it," Thomas said. He sounded maniacally cheerful, and of course he was; he had the skin loose from one of the lions and was poking around inside, moving cables and parts and fumbling in the bag at his side for tools.