The Pharoah Contract

Before he reached the rotunda that housed Nacker’s ingress, Ruiz managed to gain a few paces on the pack. Still, he would have no time for the entry procedures, would have to fight, would have to find a good spot to get his back against a wall before his knee gave out completely. As the injury worsened and exhaustion made it harder to keep his attention focused, it became more difficult to control the pain. Now each step was a hot spike driven the length of his leg. Almost as distracting as the pain was the grating, slipping sensation in his knee as the cartilage slowly crumbled.

Ruiz burst into the rotunda, which was lit by ceiling strips of glaring blue lume. Ruiz noticed dark patches here and there on the floor, and little piles of gnawed bone. A dozen open corridors led away, but one former corridor, sealed with a blast door, led to the minddiver’s hold. Ruiz fled across the littered steel floor of the rotunda toward it, knees lifting high and breath sobbing in his lungs.

Behind him the pack broke out of the passage and sent up joyous cries.

In the face of this more immediate danger, Ruiz had forgotten his fears of League observation. Accordingly, as he approached the blast door, he bellowed, “It’s Ruiz Aw! Tell Nacker! It’s Ruiz Aw! Let me in!”

Not unexpectedly, there was no immediate response. As he reached the door, he limped to a stop and whirled to face the pack.

They didn’t pounce instantly; instead they spread out in a semicircle around him as he crouched with his back to Nacker’s doors.

The pack was evenly divided between men and women. Where the fur thinned enough to expose skin, no fat diffused the striations of flat wiry muscle. Reinforced fingernails were shaped into knives, and fangs grew to the maximum permitted length. The leader danced back and forth, making little mock rushes, smiling, his yellow eyes gleaming with good humor and anticipation. When he spoke, his voice bubbled from deep in his throat. “You run well, meat,” he said. “Still, your run is over.”

Ruiz spent no breath on replying. If they wasted enough time taunting him, he would regain his wind and Nacker might open up.

But the pack leader was eager. He sprang at Ruiz, claws outstretched, and at almost the same instant three others leaped in.

Ruiz stiffened his hands into blades and struck the leader, crunching his fingertips into the wolfhead’s flat nose, splashing bone splinters upward into the brain. The wolfhead’s flying body stiffened in spasm, and the yellow eyes went dull. With a slam of his left hand, Ruiz guided the corpse to his right, where it smashed two of the other wolfheads aside into the bulkhead.

That left one attacker on the other side. He managed to twist away slightly from her first slash, and her claws scored a triple line across his shoulder instead of laying open his throat, as she had intended. But Ruiz couldn’t avoid her teeth, and she bit into the heavy muscle on the right side of his chest. She brought her knees up, preparing to push away with the mouthful of Ruiz’s flesh that she had captured, and her weight threatened to overbalance Ruiz. For a moment he was sure he would fall beneath the pack.

But he got his good knee under him and pushed back against the wall. In the same movement he slammed both hands to her head, over her pointed ears, and was rewarded by the lovely pop of cracking bone. She shuddered and dropped away.

The undamaged wolfheads were scrambling to regain their feet, and Ruiz sidled a few steps along the wall. “Come,” Ruiz said in low tones, as ferocious as he could make them. “Come.” He bared his own teeth, which, though not as impressive as the wolfheads’ fangs, were still strong and white.

The wolves hesitated for a moment, unsure. Two of their most dangerous packmates had been destroyed, so quickly. But they were only imitation wolves. The personaskeins that moved them were crude simulations, all bloodlust and bravado; they lacked the native caution of real wolves. Ruiz watched the eyes kindle with renewed rage.

The wolfheads moved closer. One female bent over the corpse of the leader, stroking the tangled fur of his face. “Leroe, Leroe,” she said in a small whimpering voice. She closed the staring eyes and licked her bloody hand.

She turned her eyes on Ruiz. He managed a scornful laugh. Her face congested with rage, and she sprang at him. The rest of the pack was unprepared to follow instantly, so Ruiz was able to kill her with a blow to the throat. She writhed on the steel, expiring. “Nacker,” Ruiz called, watching the pack gather its courage again. “Nacker! I’ve got a death net, Nacker. Let me in before the League hears all about you.”

Abruptly the blast door levered in, and Ruiz tumbled into the security lock, landing on his back.

Before the pack could decide to follow him in, two of Nacker’s huge Dirm bondguards stepped into the opening, brandishing nerve lashes. The wolfheads retreated, snarling, and the door closed.