Page 71 of Fateless

The war chief nodded and spun back, his face tight. “Guard the hive mother, warrior!” he snapped at Kysa, and shot a glareat the rest of us. “Outsiders, if you wish to fight, you will have earned my respect; otherwise, stay out of the way. I must rally the warriors and drive the abominations back. Fight well!”

He sprinted to an enormous beetle tethered outside the gate and leaped onto its back with a shout. The beetle instantly rose into the air, joining the handful of warriors already in flight, the drone of their wings blending into the cacophony of wind, screams, and howling undead. Beetles and riders descended upon the rampaging horde, and pandemonium erupted through the village.

Kysa blew out a piercing whistle that made me jump, and a heartbeat later, Rhyne lumbered to her side, snorting and tossing his head as if he knew battle was nigh. Swinging astride the rock beetle, she raised her spear, her eyes on the approaching chaos. “Stay together,” she called, as Rhyne moved his huge body in front of the gates, huffing and raking the air with his horn. “Don’t let the creatures get past us to the hut.”

“Sparrow.” Raithe hesitated, seeming torn between joining Kysa and staying with me. His gaze flicked from the gate to the interior of the warrior hut and the two women standing in the doorway. “Stay with the hive mother and the lore keeper,” he told me. “We’ll protect you both.”

My heart pounded. I remembered the group of warrior children, who would probably be standing at the ready, spears raised to take on the monsters. My hands shook, but I reached down and drew both daggers, gripping them tightly as I pulled them free. “No,” I said. “I’m not running this time.”

Halek grinned fiercely. “Our Fateless stands her ground,” hesaid, tossing one of his strange black spheres in one hand. “Let’s see if we can cheat destiny one more time.”

With his empty hand, Raithe reached out and cupped the back of my head. “Stay close, then,” he murmured, the look on his face making my heart stutter. “We’re almost to Irrikah. I can’t lose you to the Deathless King now.”

With ringing snarls, a horde of creatures spilled into the center of the village, leaping at us with swords and talons and gaping jaws. Rhyne let out a trumpeting bugle as he lunged to meet them, sending several flying with one sweep of his massive horn. Atop his back, Kysa twirled her spear, stabbing the monsters that clawed at her before Rhyne spun and knocked them aside.

We rushed to help as a trio of snarling undead came at us, reeking of dust and rotten flesh. Halek hurled his black ball into their midst, and it exploded in a cloud of fire and smoke. Shrieking, two reeled away, flames crackling over their withered flesh, but the third sprang at him with a howl. I lunged to meet it, remembering all my knife lessons with Vahn and what he’d said about fighting.

Brawling is for toughs and fools. But if you must fight, don’t waste time with superficial cuts. Strike fast, strike hard, and aim for the vitals: throat, heart, kidneys, the arteries in their legs. If you can’t kill them quickly, blind them, hamstring them, cripple them. They can’t fight if they can’t see or stand.

The blade of my dagger hit the side of the creature’s neck, ripping a deep gash through the throat and out the other side. It pitched forward with a strangled snarl and collapsed, its headnearly severed, black tongue lolling between its jaws. My stomach heaved, and I backed away.

“Oh, nice shot, Sparrow!” Halek crowed, leaping up and flinging another sphere into a group of undead harassing Rhyne. The explosion caused several of them to stagger back, withered flesh burning, before Rhyne swept them aside like empty bottles. Halek grinned fiercely and turned to me. “I always thought you could fight better than you claimed,” he said. “Someone’s been holding out on us.”

“Halek, behind you,” Raithe snapped, cutting through the arm of a monster slashing at him. Halek spun as an undead leaped at him, fangs bared, and threw another sphere into its gaping jaws. There was a flash of flame and heat, and the creature reeled back with half its face blackened and missing. Halek winced as he took a few steps back. “Right, I should probably focus on the battle. I am fast running out of fire globes, though.”

More undead bounded forward, swarming the gate. Kysa and Rhyne stood in front of the entrance, taking the brunt of the attacks. Halek hurled his fire spheres into the mob, to devastating effect, while Raithe and I picked off the creatures that got too close to the gate. I leaped back as the blade of a rusty sword swiped at my head, then darted forward and stabbed the creature below its jaw. It gave a garbled snarl and lunged, snapping at my face, only to meet Raithe’s weapon cutting across its muzzle and splitting it in half. I ducked beneath Raithe’s arm and stabbed a creature leaping at his back, driving my blade through its chest. It lurched back with a dying howl and Raithe spun, cutting off its head.

Panting, I looked around as the monster’s headless body shuddered and collapsed. The warriors of the Scarab Clan were fighting the horde, riders and individual soldiers locked in battle with Vahn’s undead army. The jackal monsters were vicious and brutal, but the warriors seemed to be holding their own. Bodies lay scattered throughout the camp, the smell of rot and blood lacing the air, but there seemed to be more undead than Scarab warriors. War Chief Vorkyth’s rock beetle flew through the air, plowing into a group of undead tearing apart a hut, and a ragged cheer went up from the rest of the clan.

And then, a cold chill crept up my spine. I looked up at Vahn, standing tall atop his undead abomination. He raised an arm, and I thought I could see something red and lumpy clutched in his hand, before he crushed whatever it was in his fist. Red streamed between his fingers and down his arm, and wisps of green energy rose around him. His lips moved, chanting words I couldn’t hear, and I felt the hairs on neck my rise.

A few paces away, the jackal creature Raithe and I had killed twitched, stirred, and climbed back to its feet.

Horror filled me. I looked around and saw all the bodies of the undead rising across the field. Headless, armless, covered in horrific wounds, they still clawed themselves upright and lurched toward the nearest living creature. Their eyes now burned with soulless green fire, bathing everything in a sickly glow. With vicious howls, they threw themselves at the clan with wild abandon, their hate-filled snarls rising into the air.

I leaped back as a monster lunged at me, its claws raking at my face. One side of its body was blackened, and the smell ofcharred flesh clung to it as it came at me, ruined jaws snapping. I slashed at its chest, cutting a gash straight to the bone, but the corpse didn’t pause or slow down. I stabbed it in the leg, but the injury had no effect. It kept pursuing me, snapping and clawing, until Raithe’s sword came slashing down to cut off its head. Only then did it finally collapse.

“This is endless.” Halek hurled one of his fire spheres into a trio of reanimated corpses, sending a burst of flame into the air. Thankfully, fire still affected the undead, burning their withered flesh and turning it to ash. “How are we supposed to keep fighting things that won’t stay dead?”

“We have to stop Vahn.”

The words were out of my mouth before I could think about them. Craning my neck, I peered up at the monstrous abomination, at the blood mage perched atop its skull, and clenched my fists. “Vahn is the one controlling everything,” I said. “If we stop him, we stop the army.”

“We have to bring down that abomination first,” Raithe muttered, also gazing up at the blood mage and the monstrous winged creature overhead. His jaw tightened, and he glanced at Kysa, still scything through groups of undead with Rhyne. “Kysa!” he called. “Does your clan have anything that can deal with a creature that large?”

“Perhaps!” Kysa’s voice sounded strained as Rhyne swept his head around and battered aside a cluster of undead. “But I cannot leave the lore keeper and the hive mother unprotected.”

“Go, Kysa Tal’Rahhe.” The hive mother appeared, the lore keeper and a pair of warriors at her side. “The Fateless girl isright. We cannot fight an army that will not die. The blood mage must be stopped, before our entire clan is destroyed.”

“We are not defenseless,” the lore keeper went on, “and the clan must come first. Take the strangers and stop the blood mage. Put an end to this foul magic, and send the Deathless King the message that the Scarab Clan will never submit!”

“As you wish, Lore Keeper, Hive Mother.” Kysa did not sound pleased with that decision, but she would not disobey, either. Glancing at us, she gave a short nod. “Follow me, then. The ballistae are on the other side of camp. Rhyne...” Whirling him around, she raised her spear and swept it forward. “Clear a path!”

Rhyne bellowed and charged forward. Howling corpses flung themselves at him, only to bounce off his carapace or be knocked aside. Halek, Raithe, and I followed as the rock beetle plowed his way through the camp, chaos raging around us. I looked back once and saw a horde of undead swarming the central hut, leaping atop the roof and tearing at the walls. I couldn’t see the lore keeper or the hive mother, and I hoped we hadn’t just abandoned them to die.

We fought our way through pandemonium, cutting down the undead that lunged into our path. Screams and howls echoed around us as Scarab Clan warriors fought back the rising hordes. But there were fewer of them now, and the undead seemed endless. I saw a trio tearing at the dirt beside one of the huts, ripping through clay and earth with their claws as if trying to unearth whatever was buried beneath. Suddenly, there was a crack, and a gout of yellow fluid arced into the air. The undead kept diggingfrantically at the hole, and the ground beneath them shuddered.

With a rumble, the earth rose up and fell away as a monstrous beetle lurched up out of the dirt, carrying a pair of huts on its back like they weighed nothing at all. Dark and shiny, it dwarfed even Rhyne. My mouth dropped open, a ripple of awe going through me as the huge beetle emerged from the ground. Shaking its head, which looked comically small against its bulk, the giant insect lurched away from the monsters that still clung to it, barely missing another hut as it lumbered past.

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