Page 35 of The Infernal Battalion

Winter pulled the hammer back and slid her finger around the trigger. There could be more than one. She kept the gun aimed at the glowing eyes as she backed toward Alex and Abraham.

“Did they tell you it was your duty to come for me? Your destiny?” The Beast’s laugh was more of a strangled cough from a desiccated throat. “Maxwell knew a great deal about the Eldest and his people. They love to talk about duty, don’t they?” The creature coughed again. “Fools.”

“Alex?” Winter murmured. When she got no response, she kicked the girl with her heel. Alex yelped. “Get up. It’s found us.”

Fuck was Alex’s first coherent word. She struggled to free herself from the blanket. “How many?”

“Don’t know,” Winter said. “Get ready to run.”

“What’s the point?” the Beast said. The red-​eyes were getting closer. “You know how this has to end. You can kill and kill until you stand atop a hill of corpses. Run to the ends of the earth. What’s it going to gain you?” Another snap, a twig somewhere breaking. “Better to let me take you. That’s what Jane wanted, you know. The chance to be with you forever. Would it be so terrible?”

“I’d rather die,” Alex said, pushing to her feet.

“So would I,” Winter said.

Would you? said a tiny, traitor voice. Giving up control would be so easy. No more decisions. No more weight on your shoulders.

“You’ll get the chance,” the Beast said. “We’re a little too far out for me to eat you. So unless you come along quietly, you’ll have to make do with being torn to pieces.” Another coughing laugh. “Poor Jane will be so disappointed.”

Winter gripped the pistol tighter. She heard the blanket rustle behind her and guessed that Alex and Abraham were on their feet. She sighted carefully on the red eyes—

Another twig snapped, off to the right. Winter spun on her heel, straightened her arm, and fired. The shot was shatteringly loud in the still forest, echoing over and over, and the flash partially obscured Winter’s vision. She could see that she’d been on target, though—​a woman who’d broken from cover a dozen yards away had taken the ball high in the chest and gone down. She was stick ​thin, dressed in rags, with long, wild gray hair and open sores on her arms. Another one of the Beast’s bodies. She must have been out here for some time already. It doesn’t even bother to give them proper clothes...

Winter’s body was moving faster than her stunned brain. Her saber was tied to the side of her pack; she reached down, scooped up the bag, and tore the weapon free. More people, at least half a dozen, emerged from the trees all around them, closing from every direction. Winter tossed the useless pistol away and raised her blade.

“Alex! Watch my back!”

“On it!” Alex said, followed by the hiss-​crunch of her power spearing through flesh and bone.

One man was coming straight at her, while two more figures closed in from the sides. Winter, slashing in a diagonal arc, stepped forward to meet the attack rather than be trapped between them. The heavy blade connected with the man’s face, raking across one glowing red eye and through his nose in a spray of gore. His hands came up, grabbing for the weapon, and Winter hastily yanked it back, slashing off two fingers.

Saints and fucking martyrs. The pain from wounds like that would put an ordinary person on the ground, but the red-​eye didn’t flinch, just came forward again with blood still spraying from the cuts. Aware she had only a moment before she was surrounded, Winter feinted high, then kicked him in the chest when he reached up for the sword again. He staggered backward, losing his footing on the slippery ground, and she spun away just in time for two pairs of groping arms to miss her. Another man, in the leathers of a hunter, collided with a teenage girl in the tattered remains of a parti-​color dress. They both turned on her, and Winter gave ground. Oh, Karis Almighty...

They’re already dead. No minds inside those bodies. The girl’s pale, dirty face was something out of Winter’s days at Mrs. Wilmore’s, grubbing with the other inmates in the gardens or scrubbing the floors. Except it’s not a girl. It’s the Beast, the Beast, the Beast.

It took her a moment to realize she was shouting. The girl came at her, and Winter grabbed her bony wrist with her off hand, pulling her forward and off-​balance. A smooth blow of the saber ripped across the girl’s neck, and her head lolled back with a spray of arterial blood. She tottered, fell to her knees, and then collapsed, arms groping toward Winter’s feet.

Dead is still dead. These weren’t the monsters of the temple, whose broken bodies had been animated by magic. They were human, more or less, with their souls hollowed out and replaced by the Beast’s controlling intelligence. They might not feel pain, but they bled and their bodies failed.

The hunter shifted to the left, trying to force Winter to move in the other direction. A quick glance told her that the first man, one remaining eye still aglow, was crawling toward her, leaving a sticky trail of blood. Winter went the other way instead, ducking under the hunter’s outstretched arms and letting her trailing hand slash him across the belly. She kicked him from behind as he stumbled forward, and he fell among his own viscera, twitching like a landed fish.

“Winter.” Abraham’s voice. “I think we need to leave.”

Winter looked up. Three more people lay dead off to her left, speared neatly through the head. Alex was gathering up her pack, and Abraham already had his on. He was pointing down the hill, into the valley, and Winter turned in that direction.

Red lights, like distant torches, but always in pairs. Dozens of them, spread through the forest, flickering as they moved among the trees. Glowing eyes, every gaze locked in one direction.

We’re dead. There were too many, far too many. The sea of lights went on and on.

“Winter!” Alex said nervously.

“Higher,” Winter said. “If we can get over the hill, maybe we can lose them on the downslope. Find somewhere to hide.” She looked from Alex to Abraham, and both of them looked back at her with trust in their eyes. They think I know what to do. Winter wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.

*

The night seemed to last forever.

At some point, Winter realized the Beast was driving them, chivying them as it had back in Elysium. The red lights were always visible, a cordon of flickering eyes, behind them but drawing ever closer. It didn’t have to show its position that way; it could hide the glow. But it served the Beast’s purpose that they exhaust themselves running.