"The hisser!" I yelled. I dropped the heavy robotic in the mud, jerked the hisser from Toal's arms, and shoved the woman behind me. I turned on the light under the barrel.
The Hog filled the road thirty meters away. His back was at least four meters above the road.
The Hog had only one glinting red eye. The other side of his head contained a ghastly socket. Half of one ear was missing, and his lower left tusk was broken. The bizarrely upswept, upper left tusk was twice the length of the right. Reddish bristles grew, like weeds among rocks, between the bony plates covering his creased hide. With snout touching the ground, he stood on cloven hoofs too small for his oily, swelling body. A stifling stench emanated from him. He moved.
"Run!" I barked. Pellets swished from the hisser's barrel. Some actually rebounded from the Hog's neck. I shot at the charging monster's skull. The hisser pinged empty. The Hog's tusks slashed upward.
I squawked like a space-happy maniac as a tusk ripped into my oversuit. I tumbled into the air and bounced through the branches of the nearby vinetree.
Hanging stunned in a snarl of creepers, I heard sharp cracks from Toal's firearm. The Hog squealed in rage. "Run, Toal!" I wheezed. "He's pellet-proof!"
The Hog stopped squealing. Mud splashed and brush broke.
"Ube Kinlock," Toal cried, "where are you?" Her cries became a mourning wail. I heard her stumbling in the undergrowth.
"Up here," I groaned. "Up here."
"Oh! Don't move. May have broken bones. Found your lantern." A light flashed across the road and countryside, then moved up the tree. "Badly injured?" Toal called.