The Barsoom Project

The humans beneath it were warrior and wizard, princess and commoner. They were frail meat in the Terichik’s path, brittle fleshly twigs tumbled in an angry storm. They scrambled for safety, away from the sea. They fled past the wreckage of the shattered Inuit village: rows of crushed houses, a great stone lodge with its roof stove in, boat hulls splintered and scattered like insect husks.

Max gaped up at the creature, then looked down at the sacred usik in his hand. Magic against magic. Why not?

Eviane screamed as she saw Max face the Terichik, remembering another figure who had lost his life while wielding a magical usik.

Max died well. He was the greatest warrior among them, but foolish to think that his enchanted usik, the pubic bone of the sacred walrus, could stand against the Terichik. Even faced by a beast to dwarf ten killer whales, Max roared defiance and sprang forward.

His magic, his courage, his strength were not enough. The Terichik crushed him, savaged his body with fanged cilia. His screams echoed in their heads long after his body had vanished into its gaping maw.

“No!” Eviane screamed, and ran out. Into the open.

Behind her, Hippogryph yelled, “No!”

She heard. She turned, breathing hard, too hard, hyperventilating.

She took a Cabal bullet through the heart. The electric jolt that meant The End warned her. She saw the red stain spreading over her entire body, and she realized- I’m not dead! Then…

It’s a Game!

And…

A series of images flooded through her mind, colliding and crashing. She screamed it. “I’m Michelle! I’m Michelle.”

She turned and began firing at the Cabalists.

One of them flopped back, out of her sight, but directly into Hippogryph’s.

That was no red stain on the man’s face! The head had been blown half away, the brain pan leaking onto the snow. Hippogryph jumped back screaming. “No! Oh, no.”

And turned around, and saw Michelle staring at him, the gun in her hand, her head cocked slightly to the side.

She stalked toward him.

“You,” she said.

He was confused. It was all happening so fast. “Wait a minute. Now. listen to me-”

Michelle’s rifle came up to the aim. “Damn you. You’re the one who put that rifle in my hand. I never forget a voice. I’m rotten on faces. But if I hadn’t been so damned confused, I would have known two days ago. I would have known!”

The other Gamers turned to watch.

“Listen.” Hippogryph was licking his lips nervously, staring at the bore of that rifle. “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that-”

She fired once, twice, three times. She howled, “Liar!”

Marty felt impacts; he felt his parka twitch. He looked down and saw dimpled cavities ripped through the parka. He could hear the click click click as Michelle Sturgeon tried to shoot him again.

Blood filled the holes in his parka and dribbled down. Marty dropped his rifle. Unbelieving and unwilling, he ripped the Velcro apart, pulled open the quilted cloth over his chest and belly, and saw red coils of intestine beginning to bulge through torn flaps of skin.

Hippogryph screamed. He pulled his jacket closed, convulsively, and ran stumbling into the white mist. They heard his screams diminish, then chop off sharply.

Another explosion. Eviane cursed and covered her ringing ears with her hands, then dropped them; she’d need her hands for fighting.

They’d been distracted a moment too long, and the immense figure of the Terichik loomed over them.

Orson shouted and pointed.

The entire sky was blotted out by a shadow which had grown so gradually that none of them had noticed it. Suddenly, with no more fanfare than that, the Raven was there. It filled the sky; its wingspan defined the horizon. It was huge beyond any ordinary concept of size.

It swooped past. The wind from the impossibly huge wings almost knocked them flat. Cawing, it disappeared into the clouds.

“We’re screeewed,” Orson started. “I thought he came to help us. Why-”

“Look!” Charlene Dula pointed to the horizon. Striding toward them on legs the size of redwood trees, swathed in furs and carrying a hunting-axe the size of a skyscraper, came Torngarsoak, Lord of the Hunt and Sedna’s lover. Summoned by the Raven and fueled by a terrible mission of vengeance, Torngarsoak came, his round, weather-creased face aflame with rage, black eyes flashing lightning, the aurora borealis writhing about his ears like a crown of glory.

The Terichik squealed in terror and reared back, hissing and swallowing air to increase its size, inflating like an angry cobra.

Ahk-lut and Torngarsoak were matched for size, but the Lord of the Hunt seemed unimpressed by the Terichik’s efforts.

In a blur of speed, the Terichik struck, fanged cilia darting out to rend, to tear and grasp.

Torngarsoak sidestepped, his booted feet smashing through the ice, sending a tidal wave of freezing water thundering to shore. Suddenly the hunter was thigh-deep.