The Drowned Cities Read Free Page A

alligator’s maw gaped wide. Vast oblivion.
    Tool lunged for the monster, the chunk of splintered root clenched in his fist. With a silent roar, Tool rammed his fist into the monster’s mouth. The alligator’s jaws snapped shut. Its teeth crushed Tool’s shoulder, piercing flesh. Pain like lightning.
    The monster rolled and dove, dragging Tool with it. Instinctively, the alligator knew it needed only to suck the air from its enemy. It was born for this fight, and in its decades of life, none had ever bested it. It would drown Tool, as it had drowned so many other unwary beasts, and then it would feed well.
    Tool struggled, trying to pry open the monster’s mouth, but even the half-man’s strength was no match for the alligator’s bite. The teeth were clamped like a vise. The alligator rolled, slamming Tool into the mud, pressing him down.
    Panic swept through Tool. He was drowning. He barely fought off the instinct to breathe water. Again he pried at the lizard’s jaws, knowing it was pointless, but unable to surrender.
    The reptile is not your enemy. It is nothing but a beast. You are its better.
    A foolish stray thought, and small comfort—killed by something with a brain the size of a walnut. Tool’s teethshowed in a rictus of contempt as the alligator plowed him through more weeds and mud.
    This dumb beast is not your enemy.
    Tool was not some brute animal, able to think only in terms of attack or flight. He was better than that. He hadn’t survived this long by thinking like an animal. Panic and mindlessness were his only enemy, as always. Not bullets or teeth or machetes or claws. Not bombs or whips or razor wire.
    And not this dumb beast. Panic only.
    He could never break free of the alligator’s jaws. They were perfect clamps, evolved to lock down and never release. No one pried free of an alligator’s bite. Not even something as strong as Tool. So he would no longer try.
    Instead, Tool lashed his free arm around the beast’s head, locking it in a bear hug, and squeezed. His grip forced the alligator’s jaws tighter around his own arm and shoulder. Its teeth pierced deep. More of Tool’s blood clouded the water.
    In the dim recesses of its tiny brain, perhaps the alligator was pleased to have its teeth sink deeper into enemy flesh. But Tool’s other arm, engulfed in the monster’s maw, was free to work. Not from the outside, but from within.
    Tool turned the shattered chunk of mangrove root and began methodically ramming it into the roof of the monster’s mouth. Ripping through flesh, driving the wood deeper and deeper.
    The alligator, sensing something was wrong, feeling thetearing within itself, tried to open its jaws, but Tool, instead of letting go, now clamped the monster tighter.
    Do not run away
, he thought.
I have you where I want you.
    Blood misted from Tool’s shoulder, but battle fury strengthened him. He had the advantage. He might be running out of air and life, but this ancient reptile was his. The alligator’s bite was deadly, but it had its own weakness: It lacked the muscle strength to open its mouth easily.
    The mangrove root ground to dust, but Tool continued, using his claws, ripping deeper and deeper.
    The alligator thrashed wildly, trying to shake free. Decades of easy killing had never prepared it for a creature like Tool, something more primal and terrifying than even itself. It writhed and rolled, shaking Tool the way a dog shook a rat. Stars swam in Tool’s vision, but he held on and tore deeper. His air ran out. His fist found bone.
    With one final heave, Tool rammed his claws through the lizard’s skull and tore into its brain.
    The monster began to shudder and die.
    Did it understand that it had always been outmatched? That it was dying because it had never evolved to face a creature such as Tool?
    Tool’s fist crushed the lizard’s brain to pulp.
    The great reptile’s life drained away, victim to a monster that should never have existed, an unholy perfection of