Deathstalker 05 - Deathstalker Destiny

you!"
    "Don't get him angry," Hazel murmured. "He's a lot bigger than I remembered."
    The Wolfling laughed softly, a dark growling sound. "The Recreated draw their power from the baby in the Maze. If you could interrupt that link, they might just cease to exist. Of course, the only way to be sure of breaking that link would be for you to murder an innocent child."
    "There's got to be another way," said Owen immediately.
    "Maybe. But you don't have much time to find it, Owen. Soon the Recreated will overcome their fear, and then they'll come dropping down out of the dark, carve their way down through the frozen outer layers of this world, and find you.
    They'll make your death last for eons, stretch your suffering across Time till your dying screams are all that remains of Humanity. Make your decision, Owen.
    The Recreated will be here soon, and nothing in the physical realm can stop them now."
    "Go, Owen," said Hazel. "The Maze saved us once; maybe it'll save us again.
    We'll guard your back here."
    "Unfortunately, it's not that simple," said the Wolfling, and they all looked at him, startled by something new in his voice. "First, you have to get past me."
    He was crouching a little now, as though ready to spring, but his great furry head still towered above theirs. Long sharp claws extended from his fingers. The wide grin had become a snarl, the sharp teeth like a steel trap in his mouth.
    The frowning yellow eyes were full of hatred. Just standing there, the Wolfling had suddenly become extremely dangerous. Silence and Hazel let their hands drop to the guns at their hips. Carrion stood a little straighter, his hand tightening around the power lance he held before him. Owen stood very still.
    "Why?" he said finally. "We have always been allies, if never friends. And even
    if the Recreated don't destroy you along with the rest of us, you wouldn't want to live in the universe they'll make."
    "Giles," said Wulf, and his voice was a low, threatening growl. "He was my friend, my old friend, who only wanted to put things right again. And you killed him. I never gave a damn about your rebellion. Humanity destroyed my whole species. Giles was the only one I ever cared about, and he's gone now. So let Humanity die. As for my own life… I should have died long ago, with the last of my kind, with my mate and cubs, but the Maze kept me alive, against my will. I never asked or wanted to be its guardian. I've been forced to be part of a great ongoing scheme, whose details and end have always been withheld from me. This may be my only chance to rebel, to destroy that scheme, and have my revenge on the Maze, and on you. For everything you took from me."
    The Wolfling launched himself, moving impossibly quickly, his extended, curving claws reaching for Owen's throat. Owen boosted, and threw himself to one side.
    In a moment his sword was in his hand, and he turned and pirouetted on one foot, bringing his sword around in a swift double-handed arc. The blade whistled through the air as the Wolfling ducked under it. Silence and Hazel opened fire with their disrupters, and Carrion's power lance crackled with spiraling energies. The Wolfling avoided both energy blasts with fluid ease, moving faster than the human eye could follow, and he lashed out with one long arm, slapping the power lance out of Carrion's hands. In a moment he was concentrated on Owen again, and the Deathstalker had to move at the top of his boosted speed just to keep up with the Wolfling's attacks. His sword cut into the Wolfling's furry hide again and again, Wulf ignoring pain and injury in his determination to get to Owen, his slashing claws coming ever nearer, the great teeth flashing in a wide grin.
    Silence and Hazel drew their swords as Carrion ran to reclaim his power lance.
    Owen shouted for them to stay back. He'd already worked out that he couldn't hope to win this fight on a purely physical level. The Wolfling was immortal, a survivor of centuries, kept alive by the power of the Maze. Owen had already stuck him with thrusts that would have killed a normal living being, and the Wolfling just shrugged them off and kept coming. Which meant… the answer had to be with the Maze. Owen scowled. He needed to think, but there just wasn't time.
    The Wolfling was pressing him too close. So; when in doubt, go for broke. Owen deliberately left himself open for a moment, and the Wolfling surged forward.
    Savage claws ripped into Owen's side and out again, spraying