Purposely leaving my sword in the soil, I slowly rise to my feet, swallow thickly, and spin.
Still.
I loosen a shallow breath—a meager sacrifice to the creatures pinning me in with their combined presence.
Three Irilak hover around me, the biggest over twice the size of Shay, looking down on me through black, beady eyes set in the twin hollows of a bleached skull. An infinite stare that etches over my skin, making my eyes mist ...
There’s a comfort in it—one I miss.
Mourn.
So many regrets.
A low, grating sound rattles in the back of its throat, lifting the hairs on my arms as my eyes sway to the smaller creature on the right. Then to the tiny one notched close—no taller than my kneecap.
My heart lurches.
They’re … afamily.
A sharp symphony of clicking specks at me from the baby one. A familiar sound.
Hunger.
A mouse in a jar would be mighty helpful right about now.
Part of me wants to flee—the part that’s keenly aware of their predatory disposition and the frail flicker keeping me safe. But that part is small, overridden by a deep, instinctual urge to make myself as tiny as possible.
To showrespect.
Slower than a setting sun, I drop to my knees and dip my chin.
There’s a creaking sound from above; a rustle and a swish before an almighty crack ratchets through me.
The Irilak scatter.
I shove back, bunched in a protective ball around my precious, potted cargo as something long and heavy thuds against the ground.
Silence prevails.
I lift my head and peer past the fine-tipped fronds of a fallen palm branch …
Air shreds out of me in a milky haze.
My lantern’s been knocked across the ground. Light cast upon the track, I’m bare and vulnerable as the Irilak surge forward so fast a blow of brisk air batters my face. They stop just shy of folding over me in a shadowed gulp, caging me in, and I look up into the reflective stare of the largest one, hovering like an ebbing wave of ink about to drain me. Or perhaps it’ll strike the killing blow, then drift back and let the others feast.
I expect the thought to stake through me with a spike of fear, but it never comes.
The seconds stretch.
And stretch.
The rain grows heavy, spilling through the canopy and pinging against the lantern’s panes, weaving between a crack in the glass and snipping out the flame.
Still, we watch each other—water seeping through my clothes and weighing down my hair, dripping off the end of my nose while I wait for them to pounce.
Tofeed.
To pour over me and suckle the life from my body until I’m nobody.
