Sliding Void Read Online Free PDF Page B

to staunch the blood pumping out across the cold hillside. The blood was his oil. Pumping, pumping. Then the nearest black dot spat out a bolt of thunder and it slapped into the slope, exploding with a hundred times the power of a trebuchet, rock and frozen dirt showering down on his head. Another spit, then another, in quick succession, Calder’s ears hardly hearing the thunderclaps through the smoke and fury. Breaking through the cloud of vaporised stone and steaming snow, the distant dot emerged, a black monster with two wheels captured spinning inside its body, dragon’s breath hazing furiously out of its rear.
    Calder shouted up at the flying monster, but his ears were ringing deaf and the words only sounded in his mind. ‘Are you the Hall’s crow, are you the—?’
    A twin of the ebony-coloured beast emerged out of the cloud of carnage, Noak’s prone body clutched by six insect legs, giving the creature’s monstrous size its true perspective. Shit, it’s going to feed on him ! They were bigger than any insect Calder had ever seen, even out in the hell-haunted wastes where he’d ventured with his crew and schooner. A decapitated arm still clutched a great sword less than a foot from Calder in the snow. Calder rolled over to it, prizing open the cold pale fingers and thrusting the blade up uncertainly towards the creatures. ‘Come on, you big ugly dung beetles. I’ve fought armies and killers. I’ve battled creatures out on the sea flow that make you look like lantern flies. I am holding your fate in my hand.’
    Hovering almost soundlessly, the closest flying beast opened a red eye, painting Calder’s chest with a warm red cross. ‘The evil eye, is it?’ He puckered a kiss up towards the monster. ‘Come on, you bastard, you’re boring me to death down here.’
    It’s kissed him back, the sharp nick of a something flying through the air almost too fast to follow and slapping into his chest. He looked down dumbly at the tiny needled tooth embedded in his tunic. He laughed. Calder had taken worse sled splinter scratches on his hands. Then the young prince experienced the novelty of ninety thousand volts of electricity coursing through his muscles. After that, Calder didn’t feel much at all.
     
    ***
     
    It came as a considerable surprise to Calder that he was actually able to open his eyes. Every muscle in his body felt as though it had been expertly filleted, dragged out of his flesh, and run through a mangle before being carelessly shoved back into his carcass. Groaning and trying to hold down the vomit inside his gut, he opened his eyes. I might have known . Standing in front of his cot with arms on both hips, studying Calder’s agony, was that bastard wizard, Matobo the Magnificent.
    ‘Those flying fire beetles were yours?’ asked the prince.
    ‘Don’t be overwhelming me with your gratitude, boy,’ said Matobo. ‘There were another two companies of the baron’s guard fast on the heels of those pretty boys I saved you from.’
    ‘Saved me? I feel like I’ve been fried in whatever corner of hell you summoned that pair of flying monsters from.’
    ‘I had to put the zap on you and your friend. Those stretcher legs on my… flying beetles, weren’t going to hold your weight so good if you took in your mind to start struggling.’
    Calder tried to sit up. He stared out of one of the room’s narrow stained glass windows. It looked like the capital outside. Late evening. He was home. ‘Am I inside your tower?’
    ‘Where else? My pets landed you and Jeeves down here yesterday. You’ve been sleeping for a while now. You don’t need to worry about any of the generals in what used to be your army coming knocking for you, though. I implanted a false memory in the mind of one of the shield-warriors that wasn’t turned into a Roman Candle by your exploding oil well. After I put a match to the oilfield, I left him thinking you and Jeeves were crispy critters.’
    ‘Who is Jeeves?’
    ‘Your