The Given Sacrifice Read Online Free PDF Page A

off one wing and come to rest more or less upside-down, twisted
     to the side just enough to make her position the most awkward possible. The bubble
     canopy was about seven or eight feet above the ground, and spotted with the blood
     that was still dripping from cuts and a squashed nose. She didn’t think
that
was broken, and none of her teeth felt loose despite the way her lips had been mashed
     against them, but it was unfortunate that she was bleeding. The boar grizzly sniffing
     around under the crashed aircraft probably found the scent far, far too appetizing.
    They had a very keen sense of smell.
    It was young but fully adult and big even for a silvertip. About the size of a medium
     horse, say nine hundred to a thousand pounds. One of the many wandering down into
     all their old range now that humans were scarce and didn’t have guns, following in
     the pawprints of the faster-breeding wolves. It was sniffing the ground carefully;
     their eyesight was bad, and the glider probably too strange to assimilate readily
     into its mental vocabulary of shapes and smells. Then it realized where the blood-scent
     was coming from and reared. Suddenly the gaping roaring red mouth and white fangs
     were far far too close, only an arm’s reach from the canopy.
    Skrreeeetch.
    A massive paw tipped with five long claws swiped across the tough synthetic. The whole
     fabric of the glider bucked and twisted; the bear outweighed it by a considerable
     margin, machine and pilot together. Alyssa smothered a scream of pain as her battered
     body was flung back and forth against the buckled metal of the cockpit like the clapper
     of a monastery bell with a mad monk hauling on the end of the rope.
    Slap-slap-slap
, and the bear’s giant paws were working like pistons in a water-powered factory,
     tossing the glider back and forth the way a piñata at a posada party in Larsdalen
     swung under the sticks of shrieking blindfolded children. She’d done that herself
     as a kid.
    The image wasn’t as pleasant with herself as a meaty treat inside instead of hard
     candy and dried fruit and nuts. Metal buckled and tore with screeching sounds. Suddenly
     cold air and the rank scent of the bear flooded in as the canopy came off, torn from
     its hinges by a massive blow.
    Alyssa snarled back at the animal, fumbling out the utility knife from its sheath
     on the leg of her leather flying suit and using her teeth to open the blade. The important
     time to show
sisukas
was when it was hard, which made this the absolutely ideal moment.
    The four-inch knife was razor sharp. Maybe if she could slash the beast across the
     nose it would give up—
    The grizzly stopped, peering at her with its massive barrel head cocked to one side.
     Its tongue came out like a red flag, sweeping over its nose.
    You could see its mental processes working behind the little piggy eyes:
Smells like fresh meat. Injured, bleeding, helpless. Worth the trouble, yes-no? Yes.
     Go for it. Yum!
    Then it slouched back on its haunches, preparing for an upward lunge at the prize
     temptingly just out of easy reach. She swiped the air with the knife and shouted:
    “Come
on
, you piece of fuzzy dogshit! Come get what Uncle Mike gave your second cousin once
     removed! I
am
a bear killer!
Haakaa päälle!
”
    •   •   •
    The monstrous humpbacked brown shape was unmistakable, Old Ephraim his every own self.
     Even these days grizzlies weren’t common in the open sagebrush country Cole had grown
     up in, but he’d hunted black bear, and he’d talked to men who’d tackled Old Eph. Their
     advice had been heavy on the
don’t try it alone
, but needs must.
    Whung!
    The crossbow kicked back against Cole’s shoulder. He’d been aiming for the spine;
     the grizzly had its back to him as it reared on its hind legs towards the shouting
     pilot brandishing her pathetic little cheese-knife. Even with the x3 scope on his
     Special Forces model that was a chancy shot at a hundred