Page 211 of Scorched Earth
Killian parried the blow and took off the blighter’s head, but there were too many of them to fight alone.
So he broke into a run.
Coughing and choking on smoke, he raced through the dead trees, struggling to keep his bearings in the darkness.
His feet splashed into something sticky and wet, and he realized he’d reached the lake.
The blight tugged at his boots like tar as he eased backward, the blighters approaching. Some of them were burning, and they illuminated the darkness like macabre lamps. As one, they opened their lips and screamed, “Does this feel like victory, Killian Calorian? Does this feel like a battle won?”
He took a staggering step back, wading deeper into the murk even as the blighters pursued. Dozens of them, the ones charred beyond recognition crawling into the blight only to disappear beneath its surface.
One lunged at him and Killian parried, only for three more to fling themselves his direction. He couldn’t win this.
Shoving his sword in its sheath, he turned and waded deeper into the lake. Deeper and deeper until it was up to his neck, the blighters that followed sucked beneath.
He could feel the blight dragging at his body. His soul. It felt like a million tiny fingers trying to pull the life out of him, but his mark stood strong. Every step was a struggle as he navigated the edge of the lake, afraid to go deeper, because there’d be no swimming in this. It would drag him beneath until he sucked in a breath of blackness, and that would be the end of him.
But then two enormous figures waded out into the lake. Blighters, yes, but also gods-damned giants.
Killian fought through the sludge toward the relative safety of the dam. Mudamorian soldiers were now fighting the blighters around the edge of the lake, but they didn’t dare step into its depths. Without a mark, they’d be poisoned, sure and true.
“Does this feel like victory, Killian Calorian?” the giants repeated over and over. “Does this feel like a battle won?”
They were getting closer, their enormous height allowing them to move more easily through the slime.
His heart thundered from exertion, his breath labored. If they got their hands on him, he was dead.
Then Killian took a step back only to find nothing solid beneath his feet.
Blight flowed over his head. Killian silently screamed, trying to swim upward, but it kept pulling him down.
Down and down, as though the lake reached to the underworld itself.
Then his boot hit something solid, and bending his knees, Killian shoved upward.
His head broke the surface and he sucked in a mouthful of air.
“Killian!”
Baird roared his name, and a second later, a rope landed on top of the blight, just out of reach. Killian lunged, fingers snagging the length just before he sank beneath the surface.
He held his breath.
And he held on.
With the strength only a giant possessed, Baird pulled him through the blight, but with each passing second, the need to breathe grew.
Hold on!Killian screamed at himself.For her sake, for Mudamora’s sake, you will hold on.
His chest was burning, every muscle in his body shuddering. But all around him was black.
In his eyes and his ears. In his mouth.
Endless little fingers clawing at him. Trying to consume him.
Then his back struck something hard.
Killian clawed his way up the crumbling side of the dam until Baird’s strong hands had hold of him.
