Some of the stronger members of the group had scavenged tools or lengths of wood or rebar to use as makeshift weapons, augmenting the seven who had swords or spears looted from Voss’s thugs. Those with weapons walked on the outside of the group, creating a buffer around the more vulnerable.
After a meal and a short rest, spirits were higher, despite the constant rain and sucking mud. The mud wasn’t deep, but it was slick and sticky. Several members of the group were covered in the red-orange slurry after their feet slipped out from under them. The first few falls had been greeted with a moment of concern followed by good-natured laughter, but it quickly got less funny as the day wore on.
Char judged they had about four miles to the rest area where she’d left Cory Rodgers and Annabeth’s survivors. It would be getting dark by then, and they’d have the hard choice of resting there for the night and risking being caught in the storm when it broke, or trying to push on in the dark.
The pros and cons of each choice circled through Char’s mind as she weighed their options. Both had their dangers. She had just come to a decision when Lulu sent her a spike of alarm.
There was something under them. A lot of somethings.
Adrenaline dumped down her spine like a wave of ice. Lulu started barking, her flames flaring higher. The refugees stopped walking and huddled together, the armed ones on the outside of the group. They watched outward, eyes flicking everywhere trying to find the danger.
Char called out, “Watch your feet! Whatever it is, it’s coming from below.” Her mind raced. She had to draw them, whatever they were, away from the refugees. She stomped her feet. “Be as still and quiet as you can.” She backed away from the group, pounding her feet down and splashing the mud and standing water in sprays of red.
Declan came around the group and raised an eyebrow when he saw her. “What are you doing?” he yelled, his eyes flicking across the ground, watching for the threat.
“Dune! If they’re like the sand worms, they’ll come to the vibrations,” she called back. She didn’t have time to see if he understood because the first of the creatures chose that moment to erupt from the earth.
For half a heartbeat, she felt relief. It was far smaller than the others that she’d fought; about the size of terrier. Then a second one, and a third, and then a dozen more burst up through the ground in a spray of water and mud. Their wet chitin glistened black, and their hundreds of legs and razor-sharp mandibles were a poisonous yellow.
They rushed across the ground, scuttling with tremendous speed. Many came for her, but more turned to rush at Lulu, Declan, and the screaming huddle of refugees.
Juvenile Voracious Myriapod
Level 12
The Voracious Myriapod lays eggs by the thousands.
If her brood cannot find enough food, they will eat one
another, until only the strongest remain.
Char darted into the largest mass, swinging her sword and pushing to wring every ounce of speed from her improved body. Her blade flashed through one of the centipedes, bisecting it with a spray of yellow fluid, then impaled another as it reared back. She spun and struck, but the bugs just kept coming.
A lance of pain shot up her left leg as one of them slipped past her guard and its mandibles clamped down on her calf. She grabbed it with her off hand and tore it away, throwing it even as she slashed at another.
Flares of orange light and cries of pain pulled her eyes to the rest of the fight. Lulu was darting through the swarm, breathing out blasts of fire that crisped the bugs. Declan was darting in and out of reality, stabbing, then vanishing before the bugs could swarm him.
Stolen novel; please report.
Someone screamed. Char twisted and watched in helpless horror as a woman fell, slick mud stealing her footing. Two others lunged forward, breaking the line, trying to pull her to safety. The bugs surged forward, and three people died.
With sudden, sharp clarity, she saw how this would end. Scattered, panicked, one mistake cascading into another, they would all die. They were each fighting their own fights, and the refugees had been left to fend for themselves. They were doing their best to fend off the myriapods, but there were too many bugs. If they didn’t coordinate, they would be overrun.
She had an idea, but she had to get the others out of the water for it to work. She sent Lulu an image, directing her to use her fire to bake the ground dry, to give the refugees a safe place to stand. Confusion flickered back through the link—then understanding. Lulu flared her flames higher to crisp the bugs that harried her, gaining herself some space to work.
Activating Wyrdsight, she watched the ghostly threads of fate extending one second into the future, used them to stay ahead of the snapping mandibles and razor claws of the myriapods. Her blade flashed out, carving a path in sprays of yellow ichor and gleaming black chitin. Spinning and cutting, she made her way to the circle of refugees.
As she fought her way to the edge of the disintegrating circle of fighters, she called out, “Pull in! Tighten the line!” It came out in a half-panicked shout, almost lost in the confusion of the fight. Her blade never stopped moving, but she took a moment to picture her father, to remember the sound of his voice when she’d watched him once, drilling his men on the parade ground at some ceremony.
She piled together that memory, fragments of advice about leadership, half-remembered war movies, and she pulled in a deep breath to fill her lungs. She didn’t feel like she had any right to order these people around, but without someone to pull them together they would all die. From the bottom of her lungs, she barked out the command, “Tighten the line! Shoulder to shoulder!” This time, her voice rang out, clear and strong, cutting through the chaos.
She slipped into the line as the voice of command broke through the fear and tunnel vision of the fighters on the outer ring. “When I give the word, move to the fire, into the dry area. Stay together! Step by step!” She checked in with Lulu and saw that she was nearly done.
“Declan! Join the line! Other side from me.” She didn’t have time to look around and find him, she could only hope he’d heard her. She tried not to look at the growing mound of glistening black bodies that swarmed over the three who’d fallen. Being thankful that their deaths had taken some of the pressure from the fighters felt wrong, but she couldn’t deny that it was true.
A mental nudge from Lulu let her know that it was time, and she called out, “Okay, move!” Suiting actions to words, she gently shoved the shoulder of the man on one side of her and tugged at the sleeve of the woman on her other side, getting them moving.
Holding the ring to protect the people inside was a clumsy, chaotic mess. The group started moving in fits and starts, and there were stumbles and injuries. The people inside the circle helped to steady those on the outside when their footing slipped, and when one man took a nasty gash to his leg, many hands helped to pull him into the relative safety of the circle, rather than letting him fall outside its protection.
A small measure of relief flashed through Char when she heard Declan’s voice on the other side of the group. He called out encouragements to the people around him.
Clumsily at first, but all together, the group moved. It was a jerky, halting progress as they continued to hack and beat at the hungry, dog-sized centipedes. The bugs were fast, and they reared up on their back halves and lunged at the defenders, razor-sharp mandibles snapping at arms and faces.
Char was used to fighting with plenty of space around her. Her style of fighting was more like a flowing dance, weaving through the enemy. Being jammed shoulder to shoulder with others was awkward, and the fight was reduced to hacking and skewering the bugs in front of her, and watching out for the people on either side.
Her attention was split between the fight, calling out encouragements, and watching their progress. Her arm was growing tired, and she knew the people fighting around her were feeling the exhaustion even more acutely. It felt like a small eternity, but eventually, she felt hard, dry ground under her feet.
Once she was sure the whole group was on the dry patch, she called out again, “Now, lay the tarps down! Spread them out. Layer them up if you can. I’m going to use my lightning, and you all need to be out of the water!”
The rain was still drizzling down, but not fast enough to undo Lulu’s work. It took the people in the center of the circle a few moments to understand what she meant, but the mention of lightning got her point across. They started shuffling around, laying the tarps down and moving to make a space large enough for everyone to stand.
At first, it was a confused scrum, people working at cross-purposes, but Anais got them organized. Char didn’t have the attention to spare to help them; she had to trust that they would get it done. More and more of the myriapods were erupting from the ground. They just kept coming.
Screams broke out inside the circle as the ground erupted and one of the bugs lunged from the soil to attack a man, but before Char could react, Declan was there, plunging his daggers into the centipede and tossing it away.
The line was flagging. There is only so long a person can swing a sword or length of pipe before muscles start to fail. They were reaching that point. When the man next to her fell back, unable to raise his sword any longer, she knew they were out of time.
“Everybody on the tarps! Now! Move!” she yelled as she started forming the pattern for Arc.