Torrent(79)

I had no more time to think about it. A black shape charged out of the shadows of the nearest tunnel. Though Eleriss was the closest person, it blasted straight toward Jakatra.
I might have had time to loose an arrow, but I hesitated, afraid it’d turn toward me if I annoyed it, and in that split second it crossed the chamber. It had to weigh five times as much as Jakatra. A sane person would have run. He waited like a statue. At the last instant, he leaped to the side, the sword whipping around so fast it blurred.
His blow would have decapitated a lion or tiger. The sword bit into the creature’s hide, but only an inch deep. It was enough to make the creature lurch backward, a startled snarl escaping its lips.
Jakatra followed, taking several more swipes with the glowing blade. The creature batted at it with its paws, but its strikes seemed slow in comparison. Or maybe it was that Jakatra was so fast—his movements were hard to follow. One moment he was in the predator’s face, slashing at its eyes, and the next he’d hopped over its lunging reach, landing on its shoulder to run down its back, stabbing and cutting every step of the way.
During a rare moment when there were a few feet of space between Jakatra and the creature, Temi threw her spear. It struck one of the sleek black haunches and bounced off. The creature didn’t notice; it merely lunged at Jakatra.
Feeling I should be attempting to help as well, I loosed an arrow the next time the combatants were separated. It struck the creature’s shoulder, but also bounced off. Again, if it noticed, it wasn’t apparent.
“Stop throwing your worthless weapons at it,” Jakatra said. “They cannot damage it.”
I flushed. I’d understood that but had thought we might at least distract it. But if he didn’t want help...
I met Eleriss’s eyes on the other side of the fight, and his expression was surprisingly sympathetic. Maybe he’d heard similar commands from his comrade. He remained in a ready position, his dagger at the ready, but it didn’t appear to have any special properties, not like the sword.
Jakatra lunged in, feinting a frontal assault only to duck under a swiping paw to slash his sword at the side of the beast’s ribcage, if it had a ribcage.
The creature howled, a high-pitched noise that reminded me more of a siren than an animal’s cry. It sounded like frustration rather than pain. Jakatra didn’t have its strength or bulk or armored hide, but the predator couldn’t land a blow on him. I was reminded again that whatever he was, he wasn’t entirely human.
Jakatra eluded a lunging attack and leaped straight up, somersaulting over the monster’s head before landing on its back. He’d twisted in midair, then slammed the sword down onto the creature’s neck, right below its skull. It should have been a killing blow, and indeed another high-pitched yowl burst forth from its mouth, but it reared and shook him off. Jakatra was flung several feet, and I raised the bow, fearing the monster would charge him when he landed.#p#分页标题#e#
But the creature howled again, then whirled and loped toward the nearest tunnel. Jakatra ran after it, stabbing it once more with the blade and drawing another cry. The monster only ran faster and soon outdistanced him.
Eleriss called out, his tone one of urgency and command. Jakatra slowed to a trot and stopped before he could disappear into the tunnel after the creature. He spewed a few sentences full of clipped words back at Eleriss, who merely shrugged and waved for him to return.
Something black had fallen to the ground during the fight. It took me a moment to realize it was Jakatra’s wool cap—he’d lost it somewhere amidst the somersaults and being hurled off the creature’s back. He had a ponytail of dark blond hair—we’d known that—and he also had—I stared—a pair of pointed ears. The bottom halves were as normal as any person’s, but the tops... yes, they were distinctly pointed.
“Do you see...?” I whispered.
“I see,” Simon whispered back.
“What are they?” Temi breathed.
Jakatra stalked over, grabbed his cap, and stuffed it into his pocket. He looked more defiant than mortified that his... unique cranial features had been revealed.
“We can damage the jibtab,” Eleriss explained to our group without acknowledging Jakatra’s bare head, “but it is, as you saw, a battle of attrition.”
“To kill it will take a great many blows. We must set a trap for it,” Jakatra said, speaking to his comrade and ignoring us, though he did deign to use English.
“Unfortunately, the jibtab is clever.”
I decided not to mention that we were only down here because it had trapped us.
Simon raised a hand. “We’re good at setting traps.”