You red freak, he thought. Escape from this!

“Where’s the gate?” he asked.

“Here!” The man pointed along the fence, and Kosar saw the look on his face for the first time. He was more than excited; he was turned on.

“How do I aim this thing?”

“You can’t. Once it’s out there’s little you can do but run.”

“Great.”

Kosar shook his hands free of the stretched sleeves. He drew his knife and hacked at the gate’s wooden hinges, breaking one, hearing the scream of the Red Monk from the square behind him, seeing movement as the tumbler shifted slightly in its bed of moss. It was taller than him, though certainly not the biggest he had ever seen; they were twice this size on the foothills of Kang Kang. It wore evidence of many kills. Bones were hugged to its hide by barbed hooks, some of them still retaining fleshy scraps, the tatters of clothes, jewelry. As Kosar forced the second hinge the tumbler flexed, shifted and then rolled with startling speed at the gate. The gate smashed open and he ducked behind it, gasping as it swung wide and pinned him against the fence. The tumbler rolled straight down the street, bouncing from wall to wall, the sound almost musical; the rustle of vegetation on stone, bones on dust, barbs scraping walls and offering a rhythm to its escape.

Kosar heaved the gate away and ran after the tumbler. Something screeched up ahead. It was not A’Meer’s voice, and it sounded too strong to belong to the injured Red Monk.

“A’Meer!” he screamed, trying to shout above the grind and rattle of the tumbler. “It’s coming!”

He reached the square in time to see the tumbler roll across its first victim. A Red Monk, just emerging into the square from an alley a few buildings along, became instantly impaled on its hide. The Monk screamed, and the tumbler paused to roll back, forward, and back again, working barbs through its victim until they held it firm. The Monk shouted again, hacking at itself, determined to cut itself free even if that meant evisceration.

A’Meer was where Kosar had left her, hobbling in a circle around the other mad Monk, launching throwing knives at its face and chest. The thing was hardly moving now, though it still stood and roared and spat blood at her, perhaps its final effective weapon.

The tumbler rolled in a small circle, still crushing down the Monk it had trapped . . . and then it paused.

“A’Meer, run!”

The tumbler accelerated across the square. It hit the wounded Monk a heartbeat later, smashing it down into the dust in a rain of blood, continuing on until it struck the wall to one side of the park gates. It pulled back and rolled again, crushing into the wall, pressing its prey deeper onto and into itself.