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He waits below the tree as the doctor slowly lowers the limp child down from the branch. She’s a dead weight in his arms, pale and bleeding from a slice on her shoulder. Arsene lets out a breath.Not fatal.
He shifts the girl to one arm and picks up his sword. Irvin and the two other children climb down the tree in quick succession.
“Carry my torch,” he tells the older boy. The resemblance to the doctor is evident in the boy’s shaky but self-assured movements. “Where are the dogs?”
“I sent them away,” says the boy, biting his lip.
Dead, then, most likely. He has no sympathy to waste on them.
When they reach the wagons Arsene opens up the back and checks it first. The two dogs cower in the back, alive and unhurt. The children scramble inside and go to them, and behind him Irvin sighs with relief. Arsene sets the girl down in the wagon and gestures for the doctor to tend to her.
As the doctor checks her over, a deep, earth-shattering howl ricochets up the canyon. The children startle. Irvin looks up, eyes wide.
“No,” Arsene hisses, pulse bursting into a gallop.The scorpion mother.
Chapter 20
ARSENE
“What was that?”Irvin demands, going ashen.
“I have to get down there. Get them into the wagon and lash it closed—tight. Make a perimeter with the torches and keep watch.”
“I’m on it,” Irvin says firmly, ushering the two children further back into the wagon.
He holds out his sword. “Take this, too.”
“I can’t use that,” Irvin protests.
“You need to defend them,” Arsene growls. “It’s simple. Hit the target. The blade will slice through their armor. Andnevermiss.”
Irvin grimaces and takes the sword gingerly. “What about you?”
“I don’t need it,” Arsene lies. He’s bigger and faster than the human—he can’t leave them with nothing to defend themselves.
Irvin obviously struggles with the weight of the weapon, tall though he is. He holds it aloft with both hands. “I’ve never killed anything.”
“Then you’re lucky. But luck doesn’t last forever.”
He leaves them inside the circle of torchlight. Up the valley comes another horrifying noise from the scorpion mother, andArsene quickens his step, cursing himself. He was lax—he should have known the mother beast wouldn’t be far behind. Now the whole camp could be in danger.
The first chimera comes out of nowhere, a shadow rushing across the path. Arsene flicks his knife blade over hilt and it embeds in the chimera’s exoskeleton with a grim noise. He pins the tail with his boot and yanks the knife free as it thrashes and dies. More shadows skitter onto the path—but they’re not attacking. They’re rushing past him.
Toward the camp.
Cries rise like smoke as he nears the glow of the camp. Scorpions evade the main camp, scuttling toward the far end of the meadow. Arsene follows them, skirting the abandoned tents. The mother beast’s call came from the edge of camp where the meadow narrows to a ledge. The lush grass cuts away to a cliff, and below it the river squeezes through the narrow part of the canyon with a roar.
Arsene creeps around the back of the pulsating carpet of scorpion chimeras, knife at the ready. The swarm gets denser as he sidles behind the camp, their poison tails pointing at the source of the howling.
He hears her snarl before he sees her. Crouched on the ledge of the cliff above the mangled body of a mule, she’s massive, her muscled legs as thick as tree trunks, her shoulders standing as tall as the top of Arsene’s head. Huge bat-like wings are folded against the manticore’s back, and a scorpion tail as thick around as both Arsene’s forearms together lashes from side to side.
Between Arsene and the beast, a handful of humans huddle against the rock slope. Arsene makes out a familiar figure, and his heart somersaults in his chest.Nur.
One morsel won’t be enough for her and her young. As she feasts, her brood dart forward and steal morsels. With a roar, she swipes them aside, unwilling to share while she’sstill hungry. Scorpion bodies fly into the canyon and disappear into the rushing water. There are so many it hardly makes a difference.
Even with his sword the manticore would be a formidable enemy—without, he has no chance. But how long do they have before she’s done her meal?
Nur and two humans carry long blades for butchering, slashing the scorpions when they get too close. They’re keeping the scorpions at bay, but soon they’ll tire. On one side, the slope is too steep to climb. On the other is the cliff, below which the river rages. The only way out is through.
