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92.
When he awoke, his aches had subsided a bit, though the pain in his right shoulder was steadily worsening. It cost him effort to rise, to stoop, to turn.
He feasted on the last of the little packets given him by Leeree. The food tasted like dried flowers and fruits, and he savored it to the last sweet, summery mouthful. He wrapped Leeree’s sling around his shoulders to warm and restrain his aching shoulder. He gripped his his weapons in his other hand and headed on. He knew now the first thing he must do.
He found the watering hole, near the city wall, that he’d been looking for. It was near the place he and Maryan had found the first dead LooWoo! and from which he had vainly set out to explore the transit terminal. All that seemed like a lost time now, long ago like all else in this ancient place.
So much time here. He made his preparations intently, with great focus, though his mind kept wandering off on tangents. So much time stored in this place, in this earth, up and down the great cylinder’s inner surfaces. So much had happened here, and no record of any of it, save the disconnected ramblings of Vectors and Nectars, Ectors and Lectors. Incomplete, all of it. Useless. Need a central vision, a picture, a plan, a coherent terminal. Need a master, a Rector.
Leaving his spear lying on the ground, and his quiver to the other side, he prepared the bow and its arrow that meant anything. Not the crude one made by Nizin but one of the fine ones from the village. He prepared the scene of his final drama as best he could and then withdrew into the low hills just beyond. There, under a canopy of leaves and branches, he uttered the pride-call, the war-whoop, the triumphant caw of the big black crow.
Silence. Just the wind in the leaves.
He repeated his challenge to the world.
Silence. Just the insects on the water surface.
Breathing hard, grasping his painfully throbbing shoulder with his left hand, he raised his face to the moon like a dying crow or a fatally wounded wolf from some long-ago ice age and howled.
He heard the snap of a twig, the grunt of curiosity, the yelp of triumph, and knew who was coming down the trail to the watering hole.
He could hear the gleeful hiss of air through Nizin’s sharp incisor teeth. He raised himself up, pushing leaves and twigs away, to see the glint of victory in the other’s eyes as he hovered over Alex’s supposed body just fifty feet away in a tangle of dark brush, under the sling cloth.
Nizin rubbed his stomach with both hands and groaned hungrily: “Siiiirrrk!”
Then he bent over to reach out and remove the sling. As he did so, he stepped on the branch Alex had carefully laid across the path. Even as the sling came away, the bow that sat in its hollow, propped apart by a branch between bow and string, jerked.
Alex heard the tight twang noise and the ripping sound as a fine stone tip ripped into Nizin’s torso.
Alex rose and cried out in triumph. “Yesss!”
Nizin looked up, puzzled, even as he held the wound near his heart and sagged. All triumph was gone in Nizin’s face, replaced by shock and realization. He held the arrow that was killing him with both hands but did not have the strength or leverage to pull it out. Bright scarlet blood poured down the soft scales on his chest and belly.
“Die!” Alex roared, raising his well arm while the other dangled bloody at his side. “Look at me! Die like you made so many die!”
Nizin struck the ground hard, looking up one more time before closing his eyes.
Alex picked up a large round stone, staggered down to the body, and smashed Nizin’s head so that gore and gray matter flecked the gravel.
Then Alex turned and headed into the woods away from the great wall. He had one last stop to make before he closed his eyes.
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